Andrew Tyrrell

@southarrowmaps.co.nz

1093 Followers 344 Following

🗺🇳🇿🇨🇦🏔 NZ-based cartographer, actually now Canada-based. Blender, QGIS, ArcGIS Pro, Illustrator. Partial to a good mountain. southarrowmaps.co.nz

A photo showing a map titled “Map of Delta Municipality. It is a blueprint map, framed behind glass, so also visible is the photographer and the interior of the bathroom in which the map is hanging

A photo of an interior wall of a brewery. There are wooden beams, and most of the wall is covered in a beige map titled “Map of Delta Municipality circa 1911”. There is a large opening in the wall, through which the brewing equipment can be seen

A photo of a large wall map of Vancouver, labelled with images of Granville Island Brewing beer cans named after their respective geographic locations

A selfie of Andrew Tyrrell (1988– ) next to a bust of Joseph Burr Tyrrell (1858–1957) at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Alberta, Canada

A largely green map on a sign showing in blue the course of various channels of the Mamquam River in Squamish, BC. Many labels are in Papyrus typeface, and there are four separate yellow stars which mark “You Are Here”

Excerpt of a map of Lake Wakatipu and nearby mountain ranges. The colours reflect the land cover, giving a natural look (blue water, green forest, beige grassland, etc). There are many unnaturally pink areas where the category "Gravel or Rock" is now named "Gravel and Rock".

A paper cadastral map of Penticton, BC. It is held between two rollers, and on the right hand side is a pull-string to scroll the map up and down

A map of the western part of West Vancouver, with the title “Nelson Canyon/Gleneagles Trails” in large Papyrus typeface across the bottom, and “Nelson Canyon Park” and “Gleneagles Community Centre” labelled on the map in the same typeface

A photo of a bar tap handle featuring the name “GEO CIDER” and a drawing of a globe

A photo of my tiny desk setup in Squamish Library. There’s my laptop, with an image and a QGIS window sharing the screen, and in the foreground is my graphics tablet displaying Adobe Illustrator. I’m poised with the stylus, tracing the historical extent of Haupapa/Tasman Glacier

A photo of the centre part of a compass embedded in the ground. The middle has a brass map of the southern part of Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the Juan de Fuca Strait.

A photo of me sitting at a table behind a sign reading “Nouvelle-Zélande”, as one of the delegates representing New Zealand at the 20th General Assembly of the International Cartographic Association. The two official languages of the ICA are English and French, hence the country name. “New Zealand” is written on the other side.

A map from the 2025 Children’s Map Competition, showing the world covered in smoke-emitting factories/nuclear reactors, with the title “DO SMTHG” and the text “THE WORLD WILL FALL APART”

A photo of a slide from a presentation. Against a white background is the title “ICC2025: Rainbow color scheme”, below which is a rainbow colour scheme.

A giant floor map of the Great Lakes/St Lawrence watershed, laid out at ICC2025.

A brief clip from “The Pirates! in An Adventure With Scientists”, showing a map being laid out on a table

Six stunning “peakscapes”, showing oblique depth maps of notable mountains/ranges with beautiful colour ramps

The author, stood on the giant Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada

A photo of a presentation slide. The left side shows the cover of Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law”, while the right side shows a top down view of a record player with the aforementioned record spinning.

The author, posing awkwardly with his name badge, in front of a banner reading “Welcome to the 32nd International Cartographic Conference”

The author, posing awkwardly with his name badge, in front of a banner reading “Welcome to the 32nd International Cartographic Conference”

A photo showing a redacted version of my Canadian work permit, alongside my passport.

Christchurch, seen behind a plane wing

A photo of the boot of a car, packed with many bags.

A still from some documentary about Ordnance Survey, showing a person (me) facing away from the camera and looking at aerial imagery on a computer screen. I am sporting 3D glasses and stubble, with the curl of a handlebar moustache protruding from my top lip.

A photo of a page in a notebook. In black ink is a hand drawn sketch map of Christchurch, NZ, showing main roads and the Avon River/Ōtākaro, with the location of 12 pubs marked with large black dots.
There’s two different scale bars. One is straight but has unequal units and has the text “SCALE VARIES WITH PINTS”. The other is wiggly and has the text “SCALE SUBJECT TO PERSONAL PERCEPTION”.
There’s also two north arrows. One is centred on a pint of beer, with the cardinal markers NESW reading “BEER”, “ALSO BEER”, “MORE BEER”, and “BIT MORE BEER”. The other has a pint glass marking just the north direction, with the cardinal markers “WHISKY”, “VODKA”, “LAGER”, “CIDER”.
Another bit of text reads “NOT FOR NAVIGATION”

A screenshot of the geometry nodes setup to create plan oblique terrain that follows the camera

A screen recording of Blender. Top left is the camera view; top right is the scene view, showing terrain and the camera itself; bottom is the geometry nodes editor and properties window.
As a property of 'lean' is increased from 0, the terrain starts leaning in the y-direction, giving a plan oblique view in the camera.
The property of 'lean direction' is then changed from a default of 0°. This causes the plan oblique lean of the terrain to change direction. In the camera view, this looks weird as the terrain changes direction and almost looks like it's sideways.
Finally, a check box property named 'follow camera?' is checked. The terrain lean initially resets to be aligned with the y-axis. The camera object is then selected and it's z-rotation is adjusted. In the oblique viewport view, the camera and terrain lean are then seen to rotate together. In the camera view, the map appears to rotate, but the lean direction remains towards the top of the image.

This animation shows the difference between rotating the orthographic camera (first half) which produces foreshortening, and adjusting the Y-value of the input normal to the displacement node (second half).

A screen grab of a section of shader nodes from Blender. Left to right are a Combine XYZ node, with values of X=0, Y=1, Z=1. The output vector feeds into the Normal socket of a Displacement node. Off screen, a 16bit DEM feeds into the Height socket. The Displacement Midlevel is set to 0, and the Scale is set to an arbitrary value of 2.4. Finally, the displacement output feeds into the Displacement socket of the Material Output, along with a Surface shader from off screen.
The Y value in the Combine XYZ node adjusts the front-back shift of the DEM, producing a plan oblique image of terrain, maintaining scale in all directions.

Daniel Huffman presenting a Keynote at GeoCart’2024, in front of the flag of Madison, Wisconsin, on the big screen.

A brightly coloured animated banner promoting a service provider

A map showing NZ’s SAR Area of Responsibility, which is almost shield-shaped. NZ itself is to the left of centre. Antarctica is at the bottom, the southern tip of South America peeks in bottom right, and across the top are spread the islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean. Most of the map is coloured pale blue to white according to depth of the ocean. Land is coloured green to pale brown according to elevation. Antarctica is white. There is a faint hill shade on the land, and everything outside of the Area of Responsibility is faded out.

A basic plan view schematic of the restroom layout, identifying two cubicles labelled “urinal” (for stand up wees), and “toilet” (for those who wish to be seated).

A screenshot of a Facebook memory from 21st June 2001, showing five photos of an issue of the New Zealand Alpine Journal, showcasing some maps of the South Island.

The caption reads:
“Exciting mail today! My first professionally published maps from my side hustle, South Arrow Maps!

🗺🇳🇿🏔🧗

I’m extremely happy to have them appear in the New Zealand Alpine Journal, the journal of the New Zealand Alpine Club. There’s a double-page full-bleed spread, and four more half-page maps illustrating the route taken by the NZ Alpine Kids on their traverse of Kā Tiritiri o Te Moana / the Southern Alps.”

A photo of the inside front cover of “Darran Mountains Rock” guidebook, which features my full-page, full-colour map indicating the location of each chapter. Stuck permanently on top of the map is a piece of card saying:

Christchurch City Libraries
Aotearoa New Zealand Collection
This collection is reference only

A simple greyscale map showing New Zealand in the lower left, and Canada in the upper right. A large curved arrow leads from the former to the latter

The Chukchi Sea is found in which ocean?
a. Pacific Ocean
b. Southern Ocean
c. Arctic Ocean
d. Atlantic Ocean

One side of a wayfinding sign showing a map of Te Ara Ihutai/Christchurch Coastal Pathway. This side is viewed going towards Sumner away from the estuary, so Sumner is at the top of the map.

A photo of the inside of Wellington airport. A giant eagle is hanging from the ceiling, being ridden by Gandalf

A Google AI overview for the search term “‘better to be an ostrich than an eggplant’ meaning”.

This made up idiom that I just plucked out of thin air can apparently be explained thus:

“The idiom "better to be an ostrich than an eggplant" is a humorous way of saying it's preferable to be something that might be perceived as foolish or impractical (an ostrich, known for burying its head in the sand) rather than to be something entirely unlikeable (an eggplant, which is often seen as bland or unappealing). It highlights a preference for a kind of foolishness over being completely undesirable.”

A photo of my laptop, a notebook, an atlas, and a pint of beer.
The atlas is in the foreground and in focus, reflecting how much I’m paying attention to it. Slightly less in focus is the beer, which was also delicious. Out of focus are the notebook and laptop, and I have no idea how they contributed to the situation

A photo of one of the War Room scenes from the West End production of Dr Strangelove. Military commanders are sat round a large table below a circle of lights, with a map of the Soviet Union on giant screens behind them. Steve Coogan as President Merkin Muffley stands in the middle of the group.

A plan oblique map of Zealandia/Te Riu-a-Māui, the sunken continent that is home to New Zealand.

The seafloor is various shades of blue, and the land is a sandy orange. The plan oblique view shows the bathymetry in pseudo-3D.

This version was made in ArcGIS Pro following John Nelson’s tutorial.

A photo of the map for tonight’s rogaining event in the Port Hills in Christchurch. It’s mainly yellow, representing open ground (grass, tussock, etc), with some areas of green (scrub, forest), grey (residential), blue (water), and red (out of bounds). There’s a selection of red circles indicating the location of checkpoints, each with a unique number indicating the number of points you gain by visiting that checkpoint. One checkpoint is a triangle in a circle, which is the start and end point. Also pictured is my electronic tag which is worn on my index finger. Each checkpoint is an electronic box with a button. Pressing the button with the tag next to it registers that you’ve visited and gives you points. After registering the start checkpoint, you have two hours to visit as many checkpoints as you can, to gain as many points as you can, before registering the finish checkpoint. Every minute you are late back causes you to lose 20 points.

An animated diagram showing a 3D cutaway of Mayor Island / Tūhua and the undersea features nearby. A satellite, a plane, and a boat are all shown scanning through the water to map the seabed.

A view of Mt Rolleston/Kaimatau in the Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, rendered in Blender from a LiDAR DEM. The image is shades of light brown with pale blue showing the remnants of the glaciers. The creases and folds in the terrain are picked out by thicker lines, giving it somewhat of a hand-drawn look.

Video of a now-retired RNZAF C-130 Hercules performing a go-around after a hard landing on a temporary grass runway outside the Air Force Museum of New Zealand. It landed permanently on the next attempt

Video of a now-retired RNZAF C-130 Hercules landing on a temporary grass runway outside the Air Force Museum of New Zealand

A red octagonal sign (one of the universally recognised symbols for “STOP”) with white text reading “NO STOPPING” and “AVALANCHE AREA”

A photo taken looking along NZ State Highway 73 towards Arthur’s Pass

A series of overlapping teal rectangles representing the extent of each map that I have created.

A screenshot of Google Maps showing the southern United States, Mexico, and Cuba. The area of sea they enclose is labelled "Gulf of [line break] Mexico [line break] (Gulf of [line break] America)".

The leading (space between the lines of text) between "Gulf of" and "Mexico" is normal, as is the leading between "(Gulf of" and "America)". The leading between "Mexico" and "(Gulf of", however, is very small, causing the letters to merge together.

This has the effect of making the label look like it reads "Gulf of..........Mexico (Gulf of..........America)", and is very visually displeasing.

A view from behind the sound desk before the gig started. There’s a small mixing desk on a table, with some armchairs and cushions ready for the crowd, and in the blurred distance an intimate stage with lots of plants

An NZMS1 inch-to-the-mile map of Broken River in New Zealand, in a wooden frame and hung on the wall.

A photo of a corner of my lounge. There’s a green armchair with a giant angle-poise lamp above it. To the left is a wooden bookshelf full of books (including the full set of the Atlases of Design), maps (mainly Ordnance Survey), some photos, and a Lego kākāpō. On the wall on the right is Daniel Huffman’s print of Aoraki/Mt Cook, in a black frame.

A photo of the map of the Puffing Billy Railway at Lakeside Station near Melbourne. The map is a large concrete area with a dark meandering line indicating the shape of the railway, and circles marking the location of stations. The map forms part of the ground and is meant to be walked over.