I think it's wrong to mention ski maps without crediting Pierre Novat (1), perhaps the original creator of this style (2) since 1962. But what is more important is that Novat actually took the work of Heinrich Berann (3) for Val d'Isère (4) and amended it that result is what we know as ski maps today.
There is some debate about who was first, Berann or Novat, but either way, this was 40 years before James Niehues from the article even started working in this style.
Since I've been skiing this has been how I've experienced all the terrain. His maps just are skiing to me. But, interestingly, with the rise of smartphones/gps apps like Slopes and the late lamented Fatmap have started to move the ski world towards 3d terrain maps and away from these artistic maps.
I have a side project I've been meaning to dust off that translated GPS coordinates to locations on Niehues maps. I got it working reasonably well but the distortions were significant enough that it needs a lot of control points to do the mapping.
I hope and believe that a screen map can't ever compete with the size of printed maps and the big boards they have on runs.
There's also something functionally superior to having someone who created an aesthetic and standard across ski maps.. someday they'll evolve and we'll have something different, but being able to show up to a new ski mountain and immediately understand the map: it's excellent UX.
There is some debate about who was first, Berann or Novat, but either way, this was 40 years before James Niehues from the article even started working in this style.
1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Novat (FR)
2. http://tropfragile.free.fr/galerie/Photos.html
3. https://www.berann.com/panorama/
4. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Left-of-the-dashed-line-...
Since I've been skiing this has been how I've experienced all the terrain. His maps just are skiing to me. But, interestingly, with the rise of smartphones/gps apps like Slopes and the late lamented Fatmap have started to move the ski world towards 3d terrain maps and away from these artistic maps.
I have a side project I've been meaning to dust off that translated GPS coordinates to locations on Niehues maps. I got it working reasonably well but the distortions were significant enough that it needs a lot of control points to do the mapping.
There's also something functionally superior to having someone who created an aesthetic and standard across ski maps.. someday they'll evolve and we'll have something different, but being able to show up to a new ski mountain and immediately understand the map: it's excellent UX.