Advancements in 3D Cartography and Visualization: Mapping Human Migration

Keywords: 3D, Scene, ArcGIS Pro, human migration
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Journalist Paul Salopek’s work in journalism encompasses a variety of topics, from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to US-Mexico border issues. In 2013, he embarked on a journey to walk one of the routes of human migration. Intended to take seven years, the walk would venture out of the Horn of Africa, through the Middle East and Asia, to Alaska, finally down the Western side of the Americas, terminating in southern Chile. Through my work with Harvard University’s Center for Geographic Analysis, I was lucky enough to join the team mapping Paul’s journey, and translate it into a 3D animation in ArcGIS Pro. Over Paul’s trip, thousands of coordinates were normalized into lines that I then tracked using ArcGIS Pro’s Scene and Animation tools. The resulting visualization showed his walking journey from its start in Ethiopia, all the way to his current location in Sichuan, China. With cartography’s continued growth thanks to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications, the experience of creating the animation and Scene was remarkably simple. ArcGIS Pro’s three-dimensional cartography has allowed for better visualization and understanding of terrain and scale, particularly in translating line-features from 2D into 3D, like was done for this project. This presentation and work will demonstrate the accessibility of these tools and the boon they offer to the GIS and geography community at large.