Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
practice—forward into a new era of map design,
creation, visualisation and use.
This chapter focuses on some of the
developments in computer or digital mapping,
from the early days of mainframe software
packages, through Windows-based graphics and
cartographic software, to the rapidly emerging and
powerful visualisation tools to be found on the
desktop computer, CD-ROM and the Internet.
As time went by, with the development of both
computer hardware and software, map design,
creation and production became much easier with
new mainframe software packages such as GIMMS
(Waugh and McCalden 1982) and SAS/GRAPH
(Baker
et al
. 1983; 1985); Carter 1984; Green
et al
.
1985; Green and Schwartz 1988). These new
software packages provided greater flexibility to
both design and create maps using smaller
computer systems, accessed via remote terminals,
and were used as the basis for producing a number
of atlases (Thom 1990; Buckland
et al
. 1990;
Maguire
et al
. 1987; Bourne
et al
. 1985; 1986).
EARLY COMPUTER CARTOGRAPHY
Early examples of electronic mapping or
cartography, often referred to as computer-assisted
cartography (CAC) or computer cartography
(CC), were largely attempts to duplicate the
practices of traditional cartography whereby the
design, creation and production of a map, and even
the final hard copy or printed map, was derived
with the aid of computer technology, e.g.
computer input (digitiser/scanner), storage
(computer disk), and output (screen/printer/
plotter). Initially, the 'new' cartography was
undertaken with the aid of large computer systems
and subsequently the minicomputer and latterly
the microcomputer (PC and Apple Macintosh).
While it was possible with the aid of the early
software packages to duplicate some traditionally
produced map products, much of the early CC
output was relatively simple and not entirely
satisfactory from the traditional cartographer's
point of view, or indeed the computer
cartographer's. The sophistication of the hardware
and software technology at the time left a great
deal to be desired. Although some of the basic
products (both in terms of the potential to design
the map and to provide soft copy (screen display)
and hard copy (monochrome or colour printed
output) were acceptable and novel, the potential
was limited by the graphics display and printer
hardware available. It was soon evident that map
design and production on a computer was far from
easy and that it was not possible for the computer
system to take on and replace the role of the
cartographer, as some traditionalists had initially
feared.
MAPPING SOFTWARE FOR
MICROCOMPUTERS
The first microcomputers had relatively limited
processing power and capabilities for storing and
handling large volumes of data, and most had low-
resolution displays.Very few had colour monitors,
and output devices provided relatively low-quality
output. As the power of the microcomputer grew,
so products such as GIMMS (Apple Macintosh),
and SAS/GRAPH (PC) were able to migrate to
the smaller platforms. Another similar package was
SPSS Mapmaker (Green
et al
. 1990). Topographer
(CLARES) and Navigator (Topologika) were also
available for the Acorn Archimedes series of
microcomputers (Anon 1993; Bennett 1994).
DOS-BASED GRAPHICS DESIGN AND
CAD SOFTWARE
To a large extent, the growth in computer
cartography was aided by the growing number of
graphics design software packages that soon
became available, at first running under DOS and
later the Windows operating systems. At the most
basic level, graphics software packages, e.g. Dr.
Halo, EGA-Paint, were often used as the basis for
drawing simple maps (see Green
et al
. 1990; Green
and Calvert 1998; Peterson 1995). Map outlines
could be input directly by hand, traced from a
transparent overlay on the screen, digitised or
