Dr Fred Calef III has the unofficial title of "Keeper of Maps" at NASA JPL, he's the Lead Mapping Specialist for most of JPL's Mars Rover missions, most recently that being Perseverance & Curiosity. But to land -and navigate- a rover, one needs maps, and Fred makes them.

Try out Kermap's monthly mosaic viewer Nimbo for yourself

Support the podcast on Patreon

• Twitter
• Mastodon

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• VICAR Github repo (Video Image Communication & Retrieval)
• Mars 2020 Rover: Terrain Relative Navigation
• Airy-o crater
• 7 Minutes to Mars
• MMGIS (Multi Planet Geospatial Information System)
  • Github Repo
  • Mars Rover Location Map

Book recommendations

• Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Affiliate Link)
• The Martian by Andy Weird (Affiliate Link)

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:48) - Sponsor: Nimbo by Kermap

(02:23) - How would you describe yourself?

(03:18) - Keeper of the Maps

(05:04) - What it takes to map Mars

(10:21) - Deciding where to put (0,0)

(12:33) - Current accuracy of Mars mapping

(14:01) - 150m / pixel: How do you find anything?

(18:14) - Rover cameras on the ground

(22:39) - Creating detailed maps for the Rover's automation

(26:07) - How would we be navigating on Mars if we send people there?

(31:20) - Comparing to the early days of car navigation

(34:15) - Using a compass on Mars

(36:13) - Mapping tools

(48:54) - Has every image of Mars been seen by at least 1 person?

(53:37) - Mars doesn't change that much

(56:45) - More strange difference between Mars & Earth

(01:00:53) - Mapping other celestial bodies

(01:05:04) - Missions or mapping projects that Fred is looking forward to

(01:06:10) - Book/podcast recommendation

(01:10:06) - One last question: Mars time

(01:13:19) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• GeoLayers
• geolayers.app
• Johnny Harris
  • Markus’s cameo in a recent video
• Search Party
• Felt
• Procreate dreams
• Jason Boone’s episode
• Podcast recommendation: Syntax.fm

(00:00) - Intro
(02:26) - Sponsor: OpenCage
(03:52) - Markus Describes himself
(04:29) - GEOlayers in simple terms
(05:50) - From Motion Designer, to Map Animation Developer
(07:51) - The team behind GEOlayers
(08:20) - How does a Motion Designer turn into software engineer?
(10:45) - Tricky nature of Map Animation
(13:10) - OpenStreetMap
(14:57) - Markus before and after diving into GIS
(17:01) - Map projections
(20:01) - Business Model & Funding
(24:08) - Self Funding
(26:38) - Being your own user
(27:37) - GEOLayers used on Youtube
(30:23) - Working with creator, example of Johnny Harris
(32:20) - Paid Support
(33:33) - Focusing ones time on what you enjoy doing
(35:11) - Making a web app
(42:35) - Subscription models
(46:34) - Expectations in modern software business models
(49:22) - High tech barrier to entry
(55:01) - Inspiration from 2 other projects
(01:05:32) - The future of GEOLayers
(01:07:21) - Local vs Web based software
(01:16:13) - Marketing & Social Media
(01:20:50) - Book/podcast recommendation
(01:23:18) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Volodymyr Agafonkin is the creator of Leaflet, an open-source JS mapping library started in 2008 that is used pretty much everywhere on the Internet today. We end up nerding out on what makes building simple open source software & rendering maps online tricky but also so endlessly interesting. Volodymyr lives in Ukraine, a country shaken by a war for the past few years, which we also talk about.

Try out Kermap's monthly mosaic viewer Nimbo for yourself

Support the podcast on Patreon

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Website

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Leaflet
• Mapbox blogpost on adaptive map projections
• CloudMade
• How Simplicity Will Save GIS
• Books & Podcasts
  • The Storyteller by Dave Grohl (Affiliate Link)
  • My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee (Affiliate Link)
  • Reply All podcast
  • Search Engine podcast
  • Heavyweight podcast

(00:00) - Intro
(01:50) - Sponsor: Nimbo
(03:26) - Volodymyr Describes Himself
(04:22) - The story behind Leaflet
(13:31) - Cloudmade Backstory
(16:42) - From closed software to open source
(23:43) - Maintaining high quality code
(27:56) - Cloudmade today
(31:21) - Leaflet, funding, sustainable
(35:09) - Raster vs Vector maps
(41:34) - Map projections
(46:36) - Current main challenges to mapping
(50:52) - Future of Leaflet
(51:54) - Leaflet and Ukraine
(01:05:39) - Book & Podcast recommendation
(01:09:35) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work