Election Maps
There have been a whole lot of elections in 2024. Which meant there have been additionally a whole lot of election maps. Within the UK, cartograms dominated the media’s visualizations of the Labour Celebration’s sweeping victory within the Normal Election. These UK Election Maps successfully highlighted the huge variety of seats gained by Labour, providing a transparent and impactful illustration of the outcomes.
In the USA, Presidential Election Maps largely favored arrow swing maps. For example, this Guardian map used purple and blue arrows to depict the numerous shift in the direction of the Republican Celebration throughout city and rural areas alike. This shift was evident even in majority-Black and closely Latino counties, demonstrating the widespread nature of this electoral swing in the direction of Trump.
The Yr of AI
2024 was undeniably the yr synthetic intelligence made its mark on tradition and expertise – and cartography was no exception. Interactive maps started to harness massive language fashions (LLMs), enabling pure language searches of spatial knowledge.
Platforms like Godview and Fuzzy Maps emerged as pioneers, providing AI-powered pure language search capabilities. Though nonetheless of their infancy, these instruments trace at a future the place looking and interacting with maps turns into extra intuitive. Throughout 2025, we might properly see main gamers like Bing and Google extra visibly combine sturdy AI search capabilities into their very own mapping platforms.
AI and machine studying additionally continued to revolutionize the sector of distant sensing. Machine studying algorithms are more and more adept at detecting objects in satellite tv for pc imagery, enhancing our capacity to watch deforestation, unlawful fishing, and wildlife, and to answer disasters. As local weather change intensifies, the position of AI in Earth commentary will doubtless proceed to broaden, serving to to watch and (hopefully) mitigate its results around the globe.
One of the entertaining makes use of of AI in 2024 was Panoramai., a playful device that allowed customers to change the looks of Google Maps Road View panoramas utilizing easy AI prompts. Regardless of its lighthearted nature, the device grew to become so well-liked that it was finally shut down because of the excessive prices related to its heavy utilization.
Free Maps for All
Two platforms stood out as my Maps of the Yr: OpenFreeMap and VersaTiles. These open-source platforms supply map builders free entry to customized map tiles for web sites and functions, leveraging knowledge from OpenStreetMap.
With industrial map suppliers’ prices persevering with to rise, OpenFreeMap and VersaTiles offered a much-needed various for builders. Their dedication to open-source rules and accessibility hopefully ensures that in 2025 much more builders can carry thrilling map-based tasks to life (and with out prohibitive prices).
