Sunday, July 30, 2023

The Map of National Animals

Two weeks ago I used Map Channels V9 and AI to create a National Stereotypes map. It turns out that I am not the only one who has been inspired by the power of AI to generate geographically themed images. In fact the latest demo map on Map Channels is this International Map of Mascots.

The idea behind this map was to create a map of individual country's national animals. According to the notes beneath the map it was also decided to dress up each animal "in their smartest national dress". Not every country has a national animal or national dress. Therefore sometimes the AI was a little loose in its interpretation. For example the animated jaguar above (Brazil's national animal) appears to be dressed for Ipanema Beach rather than in a national costume.

All the images for the map were created by Bing Image Creator. The prompt used for each image was "A pixar model of {animal} dressed in {country}’s flag and traditional clothing | 3D | clothes cinematic lighting | colourful hues | octane rendering | full body shot | white background".

The national animals map is hosted by Map Channels v9, a new simple-to-use mapping tool. Map Channels v9 is aimed at users who want to quickly create an interactive map displaying a collection of placemarks. The International Map of Mascots simply places a marker of a national animal on its relevant country. For more advanced mapping tools you can use one of the many mapping features and tools listed on the Map Channels Overview page.