Last year Lovell Johns worked on a publishing project for Millenium House to create the World’s Largest Atlas. Managing Director of Millenium House, Gordon Cheers said “Earth Platinum, the world’s largest atlas will start delivering from 20th February 2012. Earth Platinum is a comprehensive world atlas, featuring a world map for each of the thematic topics, Europe map, Canada map, USA map, Australia map, India map and more. I believe Earth Platinum will present the best national geographic map for every country in the world contained in a world atlas. The physical map of the world and political map of world are the largest ever published in a book. In these changing times, comprehensive maps are even more important than ever.” Opening to an incredible 6 ft x 9 ft (1.8 m x 2.75 m), Earth Platinum—a limited edition—has 128 pages and weighs 120 kg and is bound by hand.

Lovell Johns worked on the project from December 2010 to January 2011and were specifically involved in creating the Russian Federation pages. We had a key part in the project alongside 4 photographers, 88 cartographers, computer programmers, oceanographers, engineers and a shipwreck expert who has located the exact position of wrecks worldwide.

Guiness World Records Australia / NZ are officially verifying the map as a World Record, their spokesperson Chris Sheedy said “we at Guinness World Records are thrilled and honored to be witnessing the production of what we’re sure will be the world’s largest atlas, it will represent the breaking of a record that has stood since circa 1660 and, in this era of digital content, will provide a unique, valuable, enduring and unforgettable perspective on the world we live in.”

The record breaking atlas is on sale from the end of February, contact Millenium House for further information – http://www.millenniumhouse.com.au/contact.html

In complete contrast, last week our sister site, mapsinternational.co.uk, reported on the World’s Smallest Map ever created. You can read the story here -
http://www.mapsinternational.co.uk/blog/index.php/2012/01/20/its-official-worlds-smallest-3d-map/

Millenium Atlas South America Pages

About Lovell Johns

Lovell Johns Ltd is a UK based mapping and GIS services provider.  Founded in 1965 to serve the Cartographic needs of publishers and now part of South African media group, Avusa, the range of services has grown to include GIS and map making activities for government, EC and many private sector clients.  GIS services provided includes; data capture; database building; consultancy and training; software implementation; application development; web mapping.  We provide custom mapping applications but are also an ESRI Business Partner and reseller.  Lovell Johns is also a licensed Ordnance Survey partner. www.lovelljohns.com

Costa Concordia Satellite Photograph

As rescue efforts have been resumed aboard the wrecked Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia, DigitalGlobe have released incredible satellite photographs of the shipwrecked cruise ship. The images provide an insight into the true size of the vessel and the scale of the missions the rescuers and salvage crews have.
Satellite images show how the Costa Concordia is dangerously tipped on its side just off of the Tuscan coastline of the Italian Island of Giglio [Isola del Giglio].

Click here to download the full sized Costa Concordia satellite photograph.

The vessel ran aground on Friday with some 4,200 people on board.
The ship measures 290-meters (950 feet) long, which is almost the length of three football fields.

The commander of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, had the following comments: “While we were sailing in cruising speed, we hit a rock. According to the nautical chart, there should have been sufficient water below us”.

MaxSea has studied the mapping of the area and provides some interesting information on the navigational charts. By looking at the navigational maps displayed by MaxSea it’s difficult not to appreciate how shallow the water is.

Amazing video of how 3D mapping of London has developed.

Submarine Cable Map

Ever wondered what actually feeds the internet? We all know that by its nature, the internet is connected in many ways to create a single entity. You may have thought that the internet traffic moves through satellites?

Well the physical structure that moves Internet data from one point to another is, in fact, a series of tubes, or submarine cables. Thanks to data firm Telegeography, we can see exactly where the cables are situated. The interactive map shows a network of 188 existing and planned submarine cables used to carry Internet data. Navigate and play with the interactive map here.

Tim Stronge, of Telegeography, who created the map, says, ‘Submarine cables are very expensive to build (generally ranging from $100m – $500m) but they deliver a huge amount of capacity’.

Amazingly only 10 percent of Internet traffic currently moves through satellites.
So the next time your internet goes down, you may want to think about the undersea cables that are feeding your connection.

Damage can break the tubes; in 2006 an underwater earthquake off the coast of Taiwan, for brought internet services down. There is actually a whole fleet of ships dedicated to fixing the Internet’s damaged cables. Popular Mechanics wrote a fascinating story about them a few years ago. The ships use sonar, video cameras and a multimillion-dollar remotely operated vehicle affectionately named “The Beast” to locate and fix damaged cables.

Greenland has lost around 15% of its ice cover between 1999 (left) and 2011 (right). Photograph: Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World

You might not have heard of Uunartoq Qeqertaq, or Warming Island, as its one of the world’s newest islands.

This Thursday the new island was deemed permanent enough by map-makers to be included in Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World.

On January 16th, 2007, the New York Times reported that a new island had been found in Greenland. Warming Island was once thought to be an ice-covered peninsula, but it was exposed as an island when a glacier melted to reveal the strait.

Uunartoq Qeqertaq joins Southern Sudan and thousands of more other countries and places added or changed to the world map, reflecting political change, developing countries, and climate change.

Lovell Johns has recently agreed with Philip’s to become the authorised reseller of their map data. Through our online brand mapsinternational.co.uk we will be offering Philip’s data and custom site centred wall maps created from the data.

Philip’s map data is available as jpg or tif with georeference information if required. Philip’s site centred wall maps are available at any size and are supplied in a range of finishes including laminated, board mounted and magnetic board mounted and framed.

There is a wide range of Philip’s data to choose from depending on your requirements.

Datasets available

• Philip’s UK street mapping (including Northern Ireland)
• 1:100,000
• 1:250,000
• Europe 1:1million

One of the most popular sets of mapping is the Philip’s street mapping. For those who need a lot of detail on their mapping, Philip’s Street mapping sets the ‘gold standard; and is an essential reference for a huge number of local councils, emergency services operators and local businesses. The mapping is the most detailed available, based on the latest authoritative data from the Ordnance Survey, and enhanced to Philip’s exact specification.

Should you wish to purchase any of the Philip’s datasets or a Philip’s custom wall map just contact our team on 0845 450 3667.

Science Museum, Gold Winner of the Visit London Visitor Attraction Awards 2008, was founded back in 1857 with objects shown at the Great Exhibition held in the Crystal Palace.  Today, the Museum holds a vast range of collections encompassing scientific, technological and medical change over the last 250 years.

Unlike many other museums, Science Museum actually has a Science Outreach Team who take the science out into the classroom, in particular providing a wide range of interactive shows and workshops to schools and the wider community.  The Outreach Team offer science based performances and shows for children in Foundation Year through to groups of adults.

Lovell Johns were contacted by Science Museum Outreach Department with a request to provide mapping and statistical analyses relating to how and where the Officers spend their time.  The Team hold a lot of data on where and how often they visit schools across the UK, the age profiles of the audience and the types of show proving most popular.  In addition they needed maps with accompanying postcode tables to speed up their process of attributing a prospects postcode to a price banding.

The Museum have been provided with a series of digital images for internal communications use and website display.

Lovell Johns have created the maps that are part of the new Environment Agency Fishing Guides. The Environment Agency are looking to encourage the use of the many miles of waterways available to all. As fishing is the most popular pastime in this country, they have tapped into their huge resource of fishing sites and tackle suppliers to produce this set of regional guides.

Lovell Johns have been working with the Environment Agency for many years and began work on the mapping for these guides several months ago. Our team devised a colour scheme for the different types of fishery and the fish available there. We had to consider DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) guidelines to ensure text was clear and legible and that colours could be clearly defined. A total of 18 regional guides were produced, with thousands of fishing sites and 1000 tackle shops.

The print run was the largest undertaken for the Environment Agency, with approximately 800,000 guides being produced. These have been distributed to all rod licence holders, and are now available in tackle shops across England and Wales.

Lovell Johns have been involved in map production for a business survey commissioned by Barking and Dagenham Council. The Council commissioned LJ’s client, Step Ahead Research, to undertake a piece of market research to help the Council establish a better understanding of ongoing and future business needs in their area by undertaking a detailed and targeted telephone research campaign.

Part of the consultants’ final report for Barking and Dagenham was the supply of a series of GIS produced maps highlighting the results of the research and bringing in 3rd party data from Experian relating to business listings.

The contracting out of such map and GIS work is not uncommon in the Public Sector where specialist skills of multiple suppliers are required to satisfy a client’s requirements.

A new Government strategy has been launched which will ultimately provide better location based information for decision makers in both Private and Public sectors. Published in November 2008 by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Location Strategy will seek to solve the inherent problems of different organisations’ geographic information being inaccessible. By creating a consistent framework, the Strategy will exploit geographic information datasets to policy makers and provide increased value to areas such as retail, construction, health, security and insurance.

See the following link for the full article:
www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/locationstrategy

Symon Porteous
Business Development Manager