Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.2: Bird sightings: The bigger the dot, the more birds
Digitize
Let's define what it means to digitize. Breaking out our handy dictio-
nary gives us a definition along the lines of “convert pictures or sound
into digital form for processing in a computer.” There's nothing myste-
rious about that definition. See, you may have already done some dig-
itizing when scanning your old photographs or playing with the sound
recorder and a microphone on your computer.
When it comes to GIS, digitizing usually means capturing and storing
points, lines, or polygons from paper maps. But for the purposes of our
general discussion, we'll just equate digitizing with creating data and
hope the purists don't catch up with us before we're done.
Harrison has a digitizing project in mind. Looking at the DRG he down-
loaded to use as a base for his bird visualization project, he finds it
shows roads, trails, lakes, contour lines, and other physical features.
Unfortunately for Harrison, many of the small lakes on his map are not
labeled with their name. In order to make a better-looking display (and
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