Uncovered Atlas

Uncovered Atlas produces maps of strange lands. It is a project that draws inspiration from the feeling of being on the edge of understanding, a state before meaning is fixed that admits of unlimited possibilities.

To that end, it presents images that are suggestive, but that lack the context required to make a concrete interpretation. The maps are given no scale, no legends, and so there is room for flora and fauna and histories beyond imagining.

Generative Methods

Each page in the atlas is a hazy window into a procedurally generated world with several data layers. Seeded simplex noise is used to generate elevation and rainfall information. Other properties are derived: temperature is based on latitude and elevation, for example, and biomes are derived from temperature and rainfall.

The worlds are named using a Markov chain trained on old names, which has the nice property of producing output that is plausible and yet foreign.

Each page in the atlas presents a particular facet of a specific world. Visual variety is achieved through composition of elements: at the lowest level are plates, configurable renderings of a single aspect of world data. For instance, a plate might look at the elevation data to render isolines at given thresholds in a particular color.

Plates are composed into figures. A figure might show political boundaries overlaid with topographic isolines. Figures are hand-crafted layerings of plates, though many have variations that are selected at random.

Finally, figures are composed into layouts. Each page in the atlas uses a random layout that is populated with random figures.

Browsing

The atlas is meant for browsing. To see a new view of the current world, press the backslash key. The return key will retain the current layout and show a new world. The space bar will show a new random world and layout. In addition, the world seed and the layout seed are both directly exposed in the URL.

Browse the atlas