Robert Simmon

@rsimmon.bsky.social

5882 Followers 1223 Following

Data Visualization. Ex-Planet & NASA Earth Observatory. Blue Marble, Earth at Night, color, cartography, occasionally skewed views of Earth. Looking for a job.

Grid of map projections in a web interface.
Black and white map of the fundamental geodetic network that helped determine the shape of the world.
True color satellite image of the confluence of the Paria (upper left) and Colorado (right) Rivers. The Colorado is dark green, released from the depths of Lake Powell. The Paria is brown, and although much smaller than the Colorado still carrying enough sediment to stain the larger river.
Vintage, 3-color map of the Colorado River before construction of the Hoover or Glen Canyon dams. Contours are shown in ochre.
Plain hillshade map of southern Lake Powell showing artifacts in the source digital elevation model.
Satellite image of Bab el-Mandeb Strait showing artifacts from Sentinel-2’s image planes differences in processing across tile boundaries.
A satellite image of the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, in Azraq, Jordan showing runways and parked aircraft. Before color-correction.
small multiples map showing U.S. states as they were added ever decade from 1790 to 1960.
Screenshot of the weather underground forecast page for San Leandro, California, showing a current temperature of 1151 degrees Fahrenheit. Sunny and 78 tomorrow.
Blue and white map showing the celestial sphere (strip along the center) along with frequency of meteor sightings throughout the year (bar graph on top).
Map of the front lines in Verdun, 1916, displayed in a QGIS window.
4 maps of global air routes from 1958. The top, and largest map, is an oval twice as wide as it is high, centered in southwest France. The other three maps are in a row along the bottom. The leftmost is a gnomic projection centered on the North Pole. The center is another oval map, but centered in the North Pacific. The map in the lower-right corner is a gnomic projection centered in the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica.
The California Geological Survey (CGS) Map Sheet 48 (MS 48) depicts expected ground shaking intensity from future earthquakes across the state. The shaking intensity is represented using the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale, which describes the perceived earthquake shaking and correlates strongly with earthquake-induced damage. MS 48 maps the level of shaking with a 2% probability of being exceeded in 50 years, equivalent to a 2,475-year average recurrence interval. While the highest hazard areas are near major active faults, damaging earthquake shaking is possible anywhere in California. Factors such as proximity to faults and local geologic conditions influence shaking intensity. For example, sedimentary basins generally experience amplified shaking.
Vintage planning map of Central Park, New York, NY.
Satellite image of smoke rising above the forested landscape of Northern Arizona.
Screenshot of the Copernicus Data Browser, showing smoke from the Aspen Acres Fire near Pueblo, Colorado getting cut off at the edge of the Sentinel-2 satellite swath.
Classic blue marble render of the Western Hemisphere featured on the original Apple iPhone. Favorite of flat Earthers everywhere.
Gray smoke plumes rise from lower left to upper right. Burns scars are dark gray, The mostly arid landscape is otherwise light reddish brown, with green vegetation filling the thin riparian areas.
True-color satellite image of bright white cumulus clouds above the active Cottonwood fire in southwestern Utah. Squint a bit and you can almost distinguish the very light gray smoke from cloud cover.
16-hour true color animation of the Cottonwood Fire in southern Utah from GOES-West. One frame per minute from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. MDT. The video starts dark and then brightens from left to right as the sun rises. Smoke from the previous day lingers over the landscape. As the day goes on the fire itself rises in intensity, emitting another huge plume of smoke. Then the scene darkens from right to left as the sun sets, highlighting the structure in the smoke and clouds.
Graphical score.
Promo for Outlier 2026 — Join Me! Virtual data viz conference 24 > 26 June 2026.
Image of the James Webb Space Telescope’s 18 hexagonal mirrors taken from within the telescope.
Bar graph on a map showing hiw an NHL salary in Dallas would need to be adjusted for tax rates in other states. Dallas contract in green, additional compensation in orange. In increasing order: Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York, San Jose.
Figure showing a vertical slice of temperature anomaly data along the equator, with sea surface temperature data mapped to an inclined plain above it. The data are from an El Niño event, so the ocean water is very above average in the eastern Pacific, and below average in the western Pacific.
Oil seep in the grass.
Backlit grid of fossil dire wolf skulls at the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum
Three folded t-shirts, each from a different Rush tour.
A 2 by 2 grid of satellite images showing a gas, ash, and steam plume rising from Yasur Volcano. Clockwise from upper left May 9, April 19, and April 9, 2026, December 25, 2026.
Photo of a CD in a translucent plastic case labeled DIGITALGLOBE with 5 high-res images printed on it.
Scan of a color plate from COLOR Universal Language and Dictionary of Names. The first figure is a column of five color chips with the same green hue and saturation, arranged from lightest to darkest. The second figure is a row of green color chips with the same hue as above and equal lightness, but increasing in saturation from gray to vivid green. Each color chip is accompanied by a precise description. "very light green", "light green", "moderate green", etc.
Graphs comparing the relative oceanic niño index (blue line) to the oceanic niño index (red line) from 1950 to 2025. Over time the original oceanic niño index was rising, exaggerating the magnitude of El Niño events, while minimizing La Niña events. A second graph shows the difference in the two indices, and show the original oceanic niño index creeping up over time.
Map of a portion of the Amazon rainforest based on a digital terrain model that removes tree cover, resulting in more realistic depictions of topography.
Sea surface temperature anomaly map with the Turbo pseudo-rainbow palette. It is very saturated and pushes near-normal temperatures to the foreground.
Rainbow colored map of sea surface temperature anomaly in the eastern Pacific with a color blindness simulation. Zero values are indistinguishable from +1.5 – 2.0.
Rainbow colored map of sea surface temperature anomaly in the eastern Pacific. Zero anomaly is colored dark green, which adds significant visual noise and makes the map hard to read.
Satellite image showing Mount St. Helens and the area to the southwest, including Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. Coincidentally, the gray area of the land struck by the eruption appears similar to urban areas.
Color swatch of “scotch gray” with a watermark for myperfectcolor.com scotch gray n, often cap S : a grayish yellow green that is yellower and paler than average sage green or palmetto and greener and duller than mermaid
Line drawing of ocean isotherms demonstrating a prototype of the Spilhaus map projection.
These maps show the summit of Mount St. Helens before and after the eruption of May 18, 1980. The eruption lowered the summit from 9,677 feet to 8,365 feet and created a vast crater. The top map shows the near-perfect conical shape of the volcano before the eruption. The bottom map shows the large crater and the lava domes that grew inside in subsequent eruptive episodes.
Screenshot of QGIS with lots of layers.
Hillshaded map of Mount St. Helens made with QGIS and plugins.
Photo of a 3D relief map in the Yellowstone Canyon visitor center showing mountains in the park.
Steam rising from a riverside geyser.
Hot springs and travertine deposits.
Hand-drawn map of Wyoming, highlighting Interstate 80 and major geologic provinces. The hill-shading is high contrast, but softer than most computer rendered shaded relief.
Text reading: Subtleties of Color Revisited Color is one of the fundamental tools for encoding information in climate visualization. Yet using color in a way that conveys precision and maintains accuracy, all while remaining accessible and aesthetically pleasing, remains challenging. New research in the psychology of perception is untangling the (often contradictory) ways our brains interpret color, and provides suggestions for effective uses of color. These include how people inherently perceive value, the importance of nameable colors, hidden advantages of the rainbow palette, expanding usage of ‘divergent’ palettes, and the semantics of color. By understanding these principles, a visualizer can make design choices and employ color in ways that reinforce each other, leading to visualizations and maps that are clear, effective, readable, and elegant.
Satellite view of severe thunderstorms as they developed over St. Louis, Missouri.
Several semi-modular synthesizers & a laptop set up in front of an IMAX screen.
Several semi-modular synthesizers & a laptop set up in front of an IMAX screen.
Map showing increased detections of aircraft position from satellites vs. terrestrial antennas. Unfortunately it’s in the Mercator projection, and the great circle flight routes are all sorts of messed up.
Diagram showing 17 of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, showing last eruption date and nearby population.
Earth’s biosphere, Natural Earth projection.
Minimalist map of the DC metro by Massimo Vignelli. It’s all bold colors and sharp angles.
Vintage map of the city of London, showing sewers in relation to the streets and buildings.
Satellite image of a dust storm with entrained clouds in a tight counterclockwise swirl. The green Nile Delta is to the lower right.