Print Book $29.95
Print Book £20.95
By Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, Jo Walsh
First Edition
June 2005
Pages: 564
Series: Hacks
ISBN 10: 0-596-00703-5 |
ISBN 13: 9780596007034
(Average of 4 Customer Reviews)
Mapping Hacks is a collection of one hundred simple techniques available to developers and power users who want to draw digital maps. You'll learn where to find the best sources of geographic data and then how to integrate that data into your own creations. With so many industrial-strength tips and tools, Mapping Hacks effectively takes the sting out of digital mapmaking.
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Book details
First Edition: June 2005
Series:
Hacks
ISBN: 0-596-00703-5
Pages: 564
Average Customer Reviews: (Based on 4 Reviews)
Featured customer reviews
Highly recommended, but I still want a 2nd Edition, January 20 2008
The information in this book is useful and interesting and I'd recommend it even today to anyone interested in applied digital mapping.
Even so, quite a lot seems to have happened in this field over the last 2+ years since it was published. I'd happily fork out cash for an updated second edition.
Great tool, November 30 2006
This comprehensive resource also shows you how to interpret and manipulate unwieldy cartography data, as well as how to incorporate personal photo galleries into your maps. Thanks.
Mapping Hacks - Great Compass, June 19 2006
"This time last year, I met PERL wizard Rich Gibson at Dorkbot and he told me that he had just started work on a Mapping Hacks book for O'Reilly. Last week, I had the opportunity to peruse the finished book, co-written with Schuyler Erle and Jo Walsh. As a "map curious" newcomer to digital cartography, I can say with certainty that it's an engaging and downright inspiring book. From Google Maps to Dodgeball, location-enhanced technologies are all the rage these days. But it's easy to get lost in the hype of geocoding, Geographic Information Systems, and even GPS. Fortunately, as with the other books in O'Reilly's Hacks series, Mapping Hacks is all about learning by doing.
The hacks range from gems like #7, perfectly titled "Will the Kids Barf?" (how to create an index of road curvedness), to "#39 View Your Photo Thumbnails on a Flash Map," to "#76 Explore the Effects of Global Warming." I'm told that even experienced map hackers will get off on the open source GIS tricks, geocoding Web hacks, and other technical material. For me though, Mapping Hacks is a perfect compass to guide me into the realm of digital cartography with plenty of welcome rest stops and fun tourist attractions along the way"
Reviewed by: www.ivivu.com
Great Mapping Tips Inside!, September 06 2005
As another selection from the "Hacks" series, this book is useful for anyone, whether they have the time to read the whole book, or merely select and use a single hack. The authors have put forth 100 useful hints and tricks to introduce the reader to the world of electronic cartography. Within 1 hour of picking the book up, and choosing a hack at (nearly) random, I had accomplished something that could have taken me 2-3 days to find the tool for the job, figure out how, and then use it.
From pointers on using simple web-based mapping services, such as MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), to using GRASS (http://grass.itc.it/) for advanced GIS mapping, to deploying your own basic web-based mapping, this book has all you need to get started, and even finished with whatever you want or need to do with maps.
A few of the hacks could use a bit more explanation, for my tastes, as to be more understandable to tweak, but overall it was an excellent selection, that I would recommend to anyone interested in electronic cartography.
Media reviews
"The information age is a wonderful time and there are many popular map sites on the internet. Places where you can type in an address or name and generate a very nice overview of where you are going. However, you will now have the ability to generate maps using data that is especially relevant to you. It is the blending of data that makes a map truly unique and personal for us. This book can not only show you the route to get somewhere, it can also teach you how to find many fascinating things about the areas along the way."
-- Brian Turner, Free Software Magazine
"...Mapping Hacks includes a lot of useful where-is information that helps users locate map repositories and other resources...Mapping Hacks is a cornucopia of map-related information that covers tools, techniques, sites, and explanations."
-- Major Keary, PC Update
"A lot of what we get here for review are dry, academic texts, technical manuals and stuff like that. But Mapping Hacks is none of those things: it's a guide to extreme map geekery for the cartonerds of the world, a über-text for GIS analysts, programmers and anyone else interested in mapping or geographic imaging. In short, its purely awesome."
Urban Cartography
"Mapping Hacks, the latest page-turner from O'Reilly Press, tackles this notion head on. It's a collection of one hundred simple--and mostly free--techniques available to developers and power users who want to draw digital maps or otherwise visualize geographic data. Authors Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, and Jo Walsh do more than just illuminate the basic concepts of location and cartography, they walk you through the process one step at a time..."
Planet Utica
"The Hacks series is an attempt to reclaim the word, document the good ways people are hacking, and pass the hacker ethic of creative participation on to the uninitiated. Seeing how others approach systems and problems is often the quickest way to learn about a new technology. The book does indeed pass on the ethic. It’s a combination of tips and tricks that allow users to better use mapping tools that are already out there, to tweak existing offerings to do more than might be expected and perhaps most importantly for the arm chair reader and 'how does it work fan,' to understand how all this stuff works... Part of the value of this tome (it’s more than 500 pages) is the accessible descriptions of technology. Want to understand how wardriving works? Check page 69. Need to understand projections? That’s page 120. The discussions are clear, and personable, as though your best friend were explaining it to you."
--Adena Schutzberg, DirectionsMag.com, June 2005
"...I was totally unprepared for the sheer beauty of Mapping Hacks, which provides 'tips and tools for electronic cartography.' To start with, the book, written by Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, and Jo Walsh, is sumptuously illustrated. Hundreds of full-color photos and maps are scattered throughout the pages... Whether you're interested in maps at slightly more than a "how do I get there?" level, or professionally involved with plotting locations and geographic distributions, Mapping Hacks has something in it for you. All 100 hacks are intriguing, and several generate results that are simply stunning. This is the computer wonk's version of a coffee-table book, beautiful and built for browsing."
--DrPat, Paper Frigate and Blogcritics.org, July 2005
"Mapping Hacks covers a wide array of mapping techniques, tricks, and hacks that can be used by anyone willing to sit down and try things out... Like O'Reilly's other mapping book, this is printed in color, so you get a lot of information from the context of the figures and graphics. Nicely done. A perfect book for those looking to get their feet wet on the subject, as well as for those who are more experienced but want to learn a few new tricks."
--Thomas "Duffbert" Duff, Duffbert's Random Musings, July 2005
"Mapping Hacks is a unique book in that it will take you far beyond simply bringing up a map of Grandma's house. It will show you how to take data that you collect and use it to present maps and cartographic data about everything from mapping the wi-fi hotspots in your area, to tracking a package as it moves across the globe to creating 3-D maps of your neighborhood, your city and even the entire planet. This book is for those who aren't simply satisfied with the basic information MapQuest or Google Maps provide, but want to take that information and use it in ways that were unheard of just a few months ago... It's a unique book (and in full color too I might add) that really will open your eyes and mind to the new ways of using services and information that once was only accessible to map makers and businesses."
--Robert Stinnett, Amazon.com review, July 2005
