2009 Press Releases
Prestigious Award for UCC Cartographer
16.09.2009
Mike Murphy, Cartographer, Department of Geography, UCC, has won the Society of Cartographers 2009 ‘Wallis Award', for his work on the The Iveragh Peninsula: A Cultural Atlas of the Ring of Kerry (Cork University Press).
16.09.2009
Mike Murphy, Cartographer, Department of Geography, UCC, has won the Society of Cartographers 2009 ‘Wallis Award', for his work on the The Iveragh Peninsula: A Cultural Atlas of the Ring of Kerry (Cork University Press).
Mike was the Cartographic editor for the book and produced over 120 maps and images for the publication.
The award is regarded as one of the most prestigious awards in Cartography and is a great honour for all involved in the publication. Mike also won the award for the ‘Cork Atlas’ in 2006 and remains the only Irish person ever to have won it.
The basis for the award is "excellence in cartography". The criteria for judging considered such factors as overall clarity; balanced layout and design; aesthetic appearance; content fit for purpose; and the appropriate selection and use of colours, type and symbol.
The following is a brief description of how the maps were created as explained by Mike.
“Following on from ‘The Atlas Of Cork’ (winner of the 2006 Wallis Award), the Iveragh is the latest publication in this series and follows the same format as before. Once again I was the Cartographic editor, responsible for producing the majority of the maps and illustrations in the book. The work was completed over a three year period. The obvious difference between the Atlas of Cork and Iveragh is the latter is a (very scenic) rural area. This provided Cartographic opportunities as well as challenges. While it is impossible to describe the processes used of all the maps, here are a few examples. To exploit this I used a DTM (digital terrain model) created in Arcview from OSI data with help from Helen Bradley (our GIS officer). I then processed this in Photoshop to create the background relief image you see in many of the maps. Indeed the Image of ‘Carrauntouhil’(Irelands highest mountain) is an extreme example of this where I used aerial photographs on a DTM, digitised the climbing paths and then finally built a 3D model. Town plans were all drawn in the same style to give consistency. This style also reflects the time period the town plans related to i.e. 19th century. Many of the maps like the ‘Railway’ map also reflect their origin. When a map required large amounts of information (i.e. the war maps) on it, I stripped away the background detail as much as possible. When less information was required (i.e. ‘Special Areas of Conservation’ map) I increased the secondary detail to enhance the map.”
Mike further explained that without the combined use of Arcview, Photoshop Illustrator and to a lesser extent Word, XL, Access and Streamline it would have been impossible to produce the wide range of maps for this book. “It shows how modern technology has transformed our profession. A project of this scale also involved dealing with the needs (and demands) of up to fifty contributors. One’s cartographic judgement has to be accommodating and flexible”, he added.
Picture show: President of the Society of Cartographers, Professor Danny Dorling (right), Department of Geography, The University of Sheffield presenting the Wallis Award to Mike Murphy, Cartographer, Department of Geography, UCC.
1143MMcS
The award is regarded as one of the most prestigious awards in Cartography and is a great honour for all involved in the publication. Mike also won the award for the ‘Cork Atlas’ in 2006 and remains the only Irish person ever to have won it.
The basis for the award is "excellence in cartography". The criteria for judging considered such factors as overall clarity; balanced layout and design; aesthetic appearance; content fit for purpose; and the appropriate selection and use of colours, type and symbol.
The following is a brief description of how the maps were created as explained by Mike.
“Following on from ‘The Atlas Of Cork’ (winner of the 2006 Wallis Award), the Iveragh is the latest publication in this series and follows the same format as before. Once again I was the Cartographic editor, responsible for producing the majority of the maps and illustrations in the book. The work was completed over a three year period. The obvious difference between the Atlas of Cork and Iveragh is the latter is a (very scenic) rural area. This provided Cartographic opportunities as well as challenges. While it is impossible to describe the processes used of all the maps, here are a few examples. To exploit this I used a DTM (digital terrain model) created in Arcview from OSI data with help from Helen Bradley (our GIS officer). I then processed this in Photoshop to create the background relief image you see in many of the maps. Indeed the Image of ‘Carrauntouhil’(Irelands highest mountain) is an extreme example of this where I used aerial photographs on a DTM, digitised the climbing paths and then finally built a 3D model. Town plans were all drawn in the same style to give consistency. This style also reflects the time period the town plans related to i.e. 19th century. Many of the maps like the ‘Railway’ map also reflect their origin. When a map required large amounts of information (i.e. the war maps) on it, I stripped away the background detail as much as possible. When less information was required (i.e. ‘Special Areas of Conservation’ map) I increased the secondary detail to enhance the map.”
Mike further explained that without the combined use of Arcview, Photoshop Illustrator and to a lesser extent Word, XL, Access and Streamline it would have been impossible to produce the wide range of maps for this book. “It shows how modern technology has transformed our profession. A project of this scale also involved dealing with the needs (and demands) of up to fifty contributors. One’s cartographic judgement has to be accommodating and flexible”, he added.
Picture show: President of the Society of Cartographers, Professor Danny Dorling (right), Department of Geography, The University of Sheffield presenting the Wallis Award to Mike Murphy, Cartographer, Department of Geography, UCC.
1143MMcS