# Field Atlas

An editorial atlas map the narration moves across: a journey as one red line the camera rides, regions filled in ochre with their key, names set by an atlas's rules, and one camera from the globe down to a town and back.

## Essence, and what it is not

- A real map from public-domain geography: cream land, grey-blue water, coasts lined with water, a fine graticule.
- One camera, never a cut: the globe turns and zooms in log space to a town; the scale bar and locator answer it.
- The subject is one red line in a paper casing; what is not the subject is ink or paper.
- Data is a fill: regions in one ochre, darker for more, with a key in the corner.
- Atlas lettering: towns in the serif with a dot, countries and states in spaced capitals, water in blue italic.

Not a satellite photo (nothing photographic), not a metro diagram (geography is never straightened), not Depth Stage (silhouettes in depth; here a flat map from above), not Iso Works, not a dashboard (the map is the chart).

## Ground and material

`atlas.tsx` draws through `geo.ts`: one orthographic projection at every zoom. Land `panel`, water `panel2`, the page around the globe `bg`. Coasts carry two wide pale `op` strokes under the land, as an engraved atlas rules the sea. Borders solid `border`, states dashed. Below zoom 2 the globe has a soft light, a rim and a shadow; closer it is flat. Geography is `assets/world.json` (Natural Earth 1:50m, public domain, about 10 km): countries, lakes, major rivers, and states of the USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India and China. A close view adds the work's finer data with `Layer` and raises `detail`.

## Colour roles

- `data` red: the line being told, its head and corridor, the one place that matters (a `point`, the accent note, the locator's footprint).
- `text` ink: a line already told, names, the scale bar, the plate.
- `grad` ochre: fills only, from `panel` (none) to full (`max`); the Legend uses the same scale.
- `op` blue: water, coasts, rivers, graticule, water names. `border`: borders. `muted`: state names, notes.

No decorative fill, no two hues in one fill, no red but for the subject; borders, not tints, tell countries apart.

## Type and captions

Hanken Grotesk for spaced capitals (countries, states, kickers, keys), the scale bar and small lines; Newsreader for towns, water (italic) and titles. Chinese: Noto Sans SC with Hanken Grotesk, Noto Serif SC with Newsreader. Towns 34 to 40 px, countries and states 30 to 32, figures 100+, titles 80 to 96. Names carry a thin paper halo. The caption is a paper label with an ink rule on its left, like a legend box, legible on land and water.

## Motion

The camera is the motion: `zoom` (already logarithmic), `lon`, `lat` with `easeInOutSine`; five steps of zoom take three seconds or more. A route's `draw` is the Atlas's `followAt`; `followMix` picks it up. The frame drifts, so a held map lives. Lines grow from their start, regions fill as reached, names fade in on their word and with their zoom range, figures count up. Never moves: north up; scale bar, credit, locator.

## Composition and framing

The subject in the middle third; plates, keys and notes on paper cards in the corners. A continent fills the width; a close view shows a town with its river and a neighbour so the scale reads. Between ideas the camera travels: pull back, turn, come down. Scale bar bottom left, credit bottom right, nothing under the caption.

## Sound

None required; a quiet bed at most, and never a tick per region.

## Components

- **data** — Legend (`react/parts/legend.tsx`): The key to a Regions fill: a small-capitals title, swatches on the same ochre scale with their meaning, and the source; each step arrives when it is said. Fits: beside every filled map; a count or a share in a few steps
- **data** — Margin note (`react/parts/note.tsx`): A figure in the margin: a large serif number counting up, its unit and what it measures, with a leader to its place. Fits: a distance, a duration, a population or a date about a place; a pair that contrasts (usual against this one)
- **data** — Regions (`react/parts/regions.tsx`): Countries, states or provinces filled in one ochre by a value, darker for more, filling one after another or as a route reaches each; read with a Legend. Fits: a value by country or state (a share, a count, a rate); the places an event touched
- **ground** — Atlas (`react/parts/atlas.tsx`): An editorial map under one camera that turns the globe and zooms in log space from the Earth to a town, its scale bar following; everything else is drawn on it. Fits: the whole film, one map behind every scene, so the camera never cuts; tween lon, lat and zoom, or follow a route
- **link** — Route (`react/parts/route.tsx`): A journey as one red line drawn across the map from its first point, led by its head, with its corridor when the path has a width; it turns to ink once it has been told. Fits: a journey or a migration; a shadow, a storm or a flight crossing the land; a trade route; the path the camera rides (Atlas follow)
- **mark** — Locator (`react/parts/locator.tsx`): A small globe in a corner, turned to where the camera is, with the frame's footprint in red; it shows once the camera is close. Fits: every close view (a town, a valley, a coast); the moment a zoom lands
- **mark** — Place (`react/parts/place.tsx`): A name set by kind: a town as a dot and serif name, a country or state in spaced capitals, water in blue italic, the place that matters in a red ring; shown in a range of zoom. Fits: every name the narration says, on its word; towns along a route; the point where two things meet
- **steps** — Stops (`react/parts/stops.tsx`): A journey's stops numbered on the map and down a timetable card in the margin, each with its note; they land in order or as a route reaches them, the latest in red. Fits: the stations of a line, the stages of an expedition or a migration, the steps of anything told as places in order
- **term** — Gloss (`react/parts/gloss.tsx`): A gazetteer entry on a paper card: a name in italic serif, its origin in spaced capitals, then its meaning on its own beat, with a leader to the place. Fits: what a place name means (a desert, a river, a strait); a term of geography the narration defines (watershed, isthmus, monsoon)
- **title** — Plate title (`react/parts/plate.tsx`): The title as an atlas plate: region and dates in spaced capitals between hairlines, the title in the serif, on a paper card in a corner. Fits: the opening over the globe; a new region; the closing card

## Native moves

- **Ride the route.** The line draws while the camera follows its head, then pulls back; a Route's `shade` sweeps a real-scale shadow over the land with it. Fits content like: a migration; an expedition; an eclipse or a storm crossing a continent.
- **Count the stops.** Stops lands each station as the line reaches it, numbered on the map and down the timetable card, the latest in red. Fits content like: a railway coast to coast; the camps of an expedition; a river's towns from source to sea.
- **Say what the name means.** Come down to a place and set its Gloss: the name, where the word comes from, then what it means. Fits content like: a desert named for having no trees; a strait named for its winds; a river's name in the language of the people who named it.
- **Fill by value, with the key.** Regions fill as a route reaches them, each key step on its word; the top class lifts off like cut paper. Fits content like: the states a law reached; countries over a threshold; where a language spread.
- **From continent to town.** Four to six steps of zoom; towns stream past, the scale bar steps down, the locator comes in, the point lands with a ripple. Fits content like: where two journeys cross; the town a story starts in; a valley a statistic hides.
- **Climb back to the globe.** Pull out to the turning Earth, the place still in red. Fits content like: one village's record; a crash site in an ocean; the source of a river.

## Avoid: pitfalls

- A close view inside a fill or a corridor is one colour: raise the Regions' `dim` and lower the Route's `corridor` to its dashed limits.
- Two red lines read as two subjects: turn the earlier to ink (`told`) unless they meet.
- Coarse borders at town scale: raise `detail`, draw finer data with `Layer`.
- Names at the wrong zoom pile up: give each a `zoomIn` and `zoomOut`.
- A fill that appears at once is a slide: fill as it is said.
- A provider's tiles or a published map's layout: use Natural Earth or licensed data, credited.
- Natural Earth draws disputed borders as held on the ground: a work for an audience with its own official map (China, India) checks them and draws its own.

## Freedom in each work

Each film chooses its places, routes, fills, camera path, moves, opening and ending. Three structures: one journey ridden end to end with stops named; a regional comparison that fills, then dives into the region that breaks the pattern; a mystery that starts at a town and climbs out to the continent that explains it.