Nicholas Crane, the author of a biography on the famous 16^th-century Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator, once wrote: "maps codify the miracle of existence." Of course, for travelers who once had to deal with large and unwieldy roadmaps and especially those who never learned how to fold them right, the idea of loving maps or their representation of any existence (at least before the advent of GPS and smartphone geolocation solved that problem for good) was probably out of the question.

Many others, though, are drawn to maps and globes like magnets and see them as works of art. In many cases, they are right. Thanks to new technologies, some of the most creative new maps being produced use aluminium as a key component in making miniature worlds.

If the modern era brought us GPS navigation, it also brought us 3D printing. One artist in Poland is using 3D printing to create cartographic art. Michal Porycki lives in Olsztyn, a northeastern city along the Lyna River. This matters, he says, because there are more than 1,000 lakes in his Warmia-Masuria region, and Porycki grew up loving the water and the shapes of the lakes. It is a passion for both father and son in his family, and he sounds a bit like Crane when he says: "It is here we produce our miracles."

Porycki uses advanced technology to create relief maps in wood and aluminium, building them in a 3D printing process that layers the lakes into a visual model based on a fairly niche discipline: bathymetry, the science and study of underwater topography.

The Polish artist may create his miracles in Olsztyn – a city of innovation that recently made headlines for its solar-powered, glow-in-the-dark bicycle lines – but Porycki will make maps of any lake in the world and in any size for which he's commissioned. His examples include his own beloved Lake Ukiel, but they also include a three-dimensional map of Lake Malawi in southeastern Africa.

Once the 3D printing process is complete, Porycki and his father finish the aluminium lake map in wood, to surround the lake with an equally precise image of the land and place it within high-quality framing.

Aluminium also plays a role in collector's cartographical art, especially for maps more along the lines of what Canadian artist Parvez Taj creates. The Moon Shadow, for example, is a fine-art UV ink print on brushed aluminium that renders the world in blues and greens on the metal surface.

The Domination is a black-ink rendering of maps in antiquity. Other options include Oceans Journey and Jet Setting, with artistic interpretations of flat wall maps. Ultimately, what catches the eye is Taj's own work on the Mercator projection – hundreds of years after the Mercator first presented it, and traced on a palette made of aluminium.

Other artists, like Colorado-based Gregory Block, take a more handcrafted approach to recreating maps in aluminium. Some of Block's most unique work involves cutting and scorching aluminium cans and reassembling them into maps of the world or other, more abstract designs.

Thanks to these all of these aluminium options, mapmaking can be just as much of an art as it was in Mercator's time.