Lab 3: Neogeography

在较大的地图中查看Lab 3 Test Map
Above is a map of Pearl Harbor Attack.

I made this map because I am interested in analyzing military historical events. Therefore, the most convenient advantage of neogeography or me is that I could not only access to an accurate map and data base but also convey a complicated message in a single map without depriving many readers' imaginations. However, it is still hard to illustrate the whole historical event on this modern map, since most of historical buildings and structures were removed or rebuilt and we have only few video and picture documents. Fortunately, there are two famous historical things remained. One is USS Arizona. Another is battleship Missouri. I labeled some popular battle field during Pearl Harbor Attack with four kinds of icons and two waves of attacks in red and deep red lines. Most of these military facilities were refined and used till now. Moreover, I also roughly draw a Japan Fleet Route with blue line above the Honolulu map.

One the one hand, there are still some pitfalls for Neogeography. First, with the technology development, modern data base was filled with more and more garbage information. Especially for a historical event, although big figures like landscapes have not changed, it is better to make a map upon that age's. Therefore, only people who have good information discriminative ability could create really useful and satisfying map. Second, there would be more and more disagreements about certain piece of map, since neogeography provides a free stage for every individual to speak out their ideas without any official or compulsory regulations. If some criminals want to distort some historical events on purpose, they can also easily do these and post them on line to disturb others. Security problem is also a serious one. Sometimes, we may only want to create a private map, but due to some technical difficulties, we share all the information through internet accidentally. 

On the other hand, I believe more advanced technology could not only fix these pitfalls, but also bring a much enjoyable experience for all users. Thanks for the development of geography information services, people one day may view map from different ages. For me I could analyze historical events directly upon historical map. Likewise, along with the prevalence of animation industry, people may also make animations on their own to convey ideas to a larger group of audiences. Of course, at that time we are going to have more mature law system and regulation to protect individual's interest.

As far as I am concerned, the future of neogeography is bright and beneficial. Now I can briefly describe the attack on Pearl Harbor which only lasted for a few hours. Tomorrow maybe I could illustrate the battle in Iwo Jima which lasted for months and requires a more advanced toolkit to label numerous tunnels and channels. It is just so amazing and attractive to use Google Map like this!

p.s. the map is a little bit large but my point is on the Pearl Harbor, Honolulu.