How AI interprets · 4 min read
How AI interprets cartography.
On the gap between AI-rendered "maps" and actual cartographic discipline, and why most AI maps fail the moment you compare them to an admiralty chart.
Image models can produce things that look like maps but fail on the core discipline of cartography: contour-line consistency, depth-shading legibility, place-name typography, and internal geographic plausibility. The result is decoration that reads as a map at first glance and as nonsense on second look. Directed work fixes this by treating each plate as a chart, not as an illustration.
Cartography is a discipline before it is a visual style. AI-generated maps almost universally borrow the style without the discipline.
The conventions of cartography
- Contour lines: evenly spaced for constant slope, closer-packed for steeper terrain. Consistent across the plate.
- Depth shading: monotonic — deeper water reads as darker indigo, shallower as lighter. Never reverses.
- Place names: small serif type, kerned wide, set parallel to features (rivers run along rivers, bays along bays).
- Compass rose: always oriented, typically top-right.
- Scale bar: visible at the bottom or edge.
- Plate stamp: identifies survey, edition, year — bottom-left convention.
What models do
Most AI "maps" violate one or more of these rules. Contour lines wander randomly. Depth shading reverses inside the same plate. Place names sit at impossible angles. Compass roses face nowhere. The output reads as a map but cannot function as one.
Tidal Cartographies' fix
Every plate in the collection treats cartographic discipline as the brief. Contour lines are checked for consistency. Depth shading is monotonic. Place names use a single typographic system. The compass rose is real. The plates do not represent real places, but they could.