How to get a worldwide map?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on February 17, 2016 at 1:18pm

I used the USGS world vector data a while back when creating my dymaxion mapping, but the vector data is not clean (it comes in individual blocks rather than fully closed boundaries). Also the borders between countries are just loose polylines. So it will require a fair amount of (manual) post-processing.

There may be better solutions, perhaps using OpenStreetMap or some other repository... I don't know for sure.

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on February 17, 2016 at 11:45pm

Maybe worth investigating (maybe not)

http://www.gadm.org/country

http://www.diva-gis.org/Data

http://thematicmapping.org/downloads/world_borders.php

http://www.disruptivegeo.com/2013/03/world-country-polygon-datasets/

Permalink Reply by James Ramsden on February 18, 2016 at 4:40am

Try googling for an SVG file. They're abundant for individual countries on Wikipedia and I imagine you'll find one for a world map too. They're little more than XML files describing polylines and shapes, so much easier to work with than OSM

Permalink Reply by James Ramsden on February 18, 2016 at 7:29am

Many examples and tutorials out there too, for example http://flowingdata.com/2009/11/12/how-to-make-a-us-county-thematic-...

Permalink Reply by Daniel Domenech Muñoz on February 18, 2016 at 6:42am

Thank you guys, I will look for all of that. I only wanted to know if there was a project like that before going in the Arcgis World! 

Now I have installed Arcgis, and get a map like this (photo attached). Maybe I can export it in Cad in polylines and then it in Rhino...

But I will contemplate all options, so I will look for SVG files.

It is a long-term project and I dont know clearly what is better. Maybe I can work in Arcgis to put all the information, which they will be points which represents buildings, built or not, and each building will have like 20 informations (architect, year, characteristics, etc). 

And them export the points into Rhino-Grasshopper to build schemes and represent graphically the answer to questions like "Where was the origin of this architectonic style?", "How and where did it spread in its first 10 years?" or "Where did German architects build this style?" or "I can see where there are buildings with a monumental door". Now I have like 2000 buildings, and i think I will use 5000 for building the spatial data base. 

I will write here if I find some easy way to get that or ask for help if I find a cul-de-sac way

Thank you,

Daniel

Attachments:

• image (14).png, 105 KB
• image (13).png, 109 KB
• Africa_compare_042014_2100.jpg, 428 KB

Permalink Reply by Daniel Domenech Muñoz on February 18, 2016 at 6:44am

Or squemes like that... 

Attachments:

• LwjrM.jpg, 218 KB