Creating the Interactive Web Map for the Carte de Tendre

by Dani Henri GIS and Data Instructional Technologist, Research & Instructional Support, Wellesley College

Step One :

To create the interactive web map application, take a scanned version of the Carte de Tendre and add fake (invented) coordinates using the desktop program ArcGIS Pro (using a process called georeferencing) so that the Carte de Tendre could be used as the background image in a GIS-based interactive map.

Step Two:

Create a vector data layer consisting of a polygon for each location on the map -- each polygon was named after its specific map location.

Step Three:

Create an Excel spreadsheet with all of the students’ work (titles, translations, definitions) and add web links for each map location’s specific Google Sites page. Export this spreadsheet as a CSV file and join it in ArcGIS Pro to the polygon data layer’s attribute table based on the unique location names.

Step Four:

Export the background map image and the polygon data layer as web layers to ArcGIS Online, and use ArcGIS Online’s Map Viewer Classic to create an interactive web map. The Carte de Tendre was used as the basemap (essentially covering the entire planet), and the polygon layer was placed on top.

Step Five:

Configure the custom pop-ups for the polygon layer so that when a user clicks on one of the polygons, specific information about that polygon from the attribute table is displayed in a pop-up window.

Step Six:

Make the polygon layer transparent, so it would appear as though users are interacting directly with the Carte de Tendre rather than with the polygon sitting on top. This interactive web map was then packaged as a web app (using ArcGIS Online’s configurable apps) and embedded into the final Google Site.