Oculi Mundi – a new platform for the study and transmission of historical maps.
By Celeste Pedro
Abstract:
Maps have been among the most widespread visual tools since the early modern ages when a new understanding of space and the limits of the world started reshaping our minds. For those who would never have the chance to travel, maps made distances more tangible; for those travelling, ever more accurate maps made survival more likely; and eventually, those making or commissioning maps had the chance to become political agents. In this issue, I’ll present two examples of how the digital humanities have transformed how we access scholarly information and enjoy world heritage.
Fig. 1: Landing page of the Oculi Mundi website.
“Oculi Mundi – The Eyes of the World” was launched two months ago; it houses the Sunderland Collection of various forms of maps of the skies and the Earth, currently reaching 130 remarkable specimens.
The platform was created by the company Q42 in the Netherlands. Marvin Sernee writes: “This project presented major challenges for us in the areas of 3D experiences and animations, creativity and innovation, performance, and accessibility.”
Fig. 2: Explore mode of the Oculi Mundi website.
It is divided into two blocks of interaction modes: “Explore” and “Research”, one is a beautiful data visualisation tool aimed at exploring objects (maps) at different scales and with curated information that is both informative and engaging, especially the “Stories” that bring the maps to context and visual enjoyment, and the other provides a more traditional approach, using typical image viewers with full bibliographical descriptions.
Fig. 3: Stories page of the Oculi Mundi website.
It takes a while to get used to the interactive “gestures” you need to travel around the platform because it goes beyond simple clicks and search modes, and when one starts exploring, the sitemap quickly gets confusing. On the other hand, it does “exploit digital environments” to exciting levels. It is an immersive experience that dignifies the collection and the effort put into its technological development. I feel that the project’s aim “to create a comparable online experience to that of a real museum, even without a physical space” was achieved.
In contrast to Oculi Mundi, The David Rumsey Map Collection comprises more than 127.000 digitised maps and related images collected since 1996. It can become a little chaotic because it is so big, and there’s so much information collected on the website.The collection uses the LUNA viewer as one of the resources. In addition, users can randomly explore the categories presented, visit the library, the collections’ physical space (at the Stanford University Library) or a fantastic globe interactive viewer to display maps, among other search modes and visual displays such as georeferencing.
Fig. 4: Globe viewer on the David Rumsey Map Collection website.
There’s also a new feature on the website called “Search by Text-on-Maps”, where you can filter words annotated on maps. When you hover over one image from the results, the entire map with a pinpoint to the word appears.
Fig. 5: Search results for the word “porto” in the David Rumsey Map Collection website.
In both cases, it is clear that users’ relationship with the preservation and availability of collections (and heritage in general) are the institutions’ and developers’ primary concern. Communicating digitally is both a challenge and an opportunity to grow and share.
And if you want to try developing or building maps by yourself online/digitally, here’s a great software developed by Petr Pridal’s company, with offices in Switzerland and the Czech Republic: https://www.maptiler.com/ .
IPM Monthly 