Friday’s Food for Thought: Pearl Harbor

Dec. 7 marked the 75^th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and some commemorated the day by visualizing it with maps.

Hidenori Watanave, an associate professor of information technology and design at Tokyo Metropolitan University in Japan, memorialized the day of the attack with an interactive map. According to Quartz, the map includes photographs and interviews with eyewitnesses. While scrolling through the satellite imagery, users can click on each image pinpointed on the map and read the first-hand accounts.

Additionally, Earl McElfresh of McElfresh Map Company produced a map of Pearl Harbor now on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C. McElfresh used aerial photographs of the military base and surrounding areas of Oahu, Hawaii, to draw and watercolor the landscape.

75 years later, researchers are trying to better understand the state of the sunken USS Arizona and how the vessel has changed over the decades. The National Park Service, Autodesk, and other partnering organizations used a combination of sonar, LiDAR, and photogrammetry to collect data and create a digital 3D model of the ship.

Photo Credit: Hidenori Watanave