Tooling up for Complexity - Participatory Mapping: New Data, New Cartography - page 10

functions of support, analysis and logistical information
processing.
1.2. A shift in the uses of maps
If maps were mostly used since their invention for their
visualization and information-management functions, they
became more and more used over the 19th Century for the
collection and circulation of writings. This shift from
topographic to thematic maps triggered the use of maps as
instruments of public action [LAS 07] as shown by the uses
made by engineers and doctors.
1.2.1. From topographic to thematic maps
Topographic maps, which facilitated visualization of the
physical elements in the represented space, boomed over the
17th and 18th Centuries. In France, this is best illustrated
by the work by the Cassini family. The story of the Cassini
cartography started with Giovanni Domenico Cassini's
invitation to the Royal Academy of Paris in 1669. He was to
make a comprehensive survey of France in order to fill the
gaps in the map of the Academy 2 . This is how four
generations of this family worked to improve the topographic
survey data on France. Their work was punctuated by
particular requests (in 1747 for instance, Louis XV requested
a more precise map, at a scale of 1: 86 400) and by
interruptions of funding (as in 1756, the King judged the
project too expensive; so Cassini III set up a private company
and developed trade in maps). This long-term project came to
2 Cassini and the members of the Academy used the triangulation
principle which “[…] uses one of the three fundamental laws of plane
trigonometry according to which if one side and two angles of a triangle
are known the last angle and the other two sides can easily be found”
[FAR 09, p.40].