Showing papers in "Cartographic Journal in 2003"

ColorBrewer.org: An Online Tool for Selecting Colour Schemes for Maps

Abstract: Choosing effective colour schemes for thematic maps is surprisingly difficult. ColorBrewer is an online tool designed to take some of the guesswork out of this process by helping users select appro...

' Drawing the Coral Heads' : Mental Mapping and its Physical Representation in a Polynesian Community

Abstract: Indigenous people throughout the world developed their own mapping skills and systems of knowledge. While Westerners are prone to overlook these communities' geographical knowledge and imagine their mapping activities to be primitive or non-existent, their mental maps are often impressive in sophistication and detailed even if based on cosmologies that are quite foreign to Western thinking. This article depicts a mental map of the ocean floor shared by Polynesians of Anuta, a remote community in the Solomon Islands. It situates Anuta's reef map in relation to academic discussions of indigenous cartography and describes the process that resulted in the map's physical representation.

Real World Map Reading Strategies

Abstract: (2003). Real World Map Reading Strategies. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 265-268.

The Representation of Topographic Information on Maps: The Depiction of Relief

Abstract: (2003). The Representation of Topographic Information on Maps: The Depiction of Relief. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 17-26.

The World of Touch: Results of an International Survey of Tactile Maps and Symbols

Abstract: This paper reports the findings of an international survey that collected data on production methods, techniques, outputs and design preferences among tactile map producers, designers and researchers worldwide A number of consistencies and inconsistencies are identified and we speculate on the extent to which the current state of tactile map production is likely to meet the needs of the client population We describe the sample on which the report is based, the output in terms of quantity of maps produced, choice of production method, types of environment mapped and intended uses of maps We also focus on issues of map design, such as the choice of map size and format, and choice of symbols

Weight-Setting and Quality Assessment in Simultaneous Graphic Generalization

Abstract: Cartographic generalization aims at simplifying the representation of data to suit the scale and purpose of the map. This paper deals with a method that implements the whole graphic generalization process (roughly defined as the operators simplification, smoothing, exaggeration and displacement) called simultaneous graphic generalization. This method is based on constraints, i.e. requirements that should be fulfilled in the generalization process. The constraints strive to make the map readable while preserving the characteristics of the data, which implies that all constraints cannot be completely satisfied. This study was concentrated on finding the optimal compromise between the constraints in simultaneous graphic generalization by setting weights for the constraints. Four strategies for determining the weights are described and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The discussion is based on the following assumptions: the constraints are independent, and the weights are only dependent on constraint type and object type. A comparison of the strategies reveals that the strategy constraint violation is the most promising. One advantage with this strategy is that it is related to the quality requirements of the map, and another advantage is that it provides a numerical measure for quality assessment. The paper concludes with a case study of the constraint violation strategy, in which visualization of the numerical quality measure is used. The case study shows that the constraint violation strategy gives a sound compromise between the constraints.

Some Personal Reflections on Change ... The Past and Future of Cartography

Abstract: (2003). Some Personal Reflections on Change ... The Past and Future of Cartography. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, National Report by the UK to the International Cartographic Association, pp. 111-115.

Exploring Tactile Maps with One or Two Fingers

Abstract: Real 3D objects are typically explored with high efficiency by several fingers. The largest increase in efficiency is obtained between the use of one and two fingers. The aim of the present experiment was to investigate if the efficiency of identifying a country on a 2D tactile map can be increased by the use of two fingers exploration along opposite sides of the map compared with following along the contour. The result was that there was no significant difference between one-finger and two-finger exploration, but there were significant improvements over sessions. The difference between exploration of 2D and 3D objects is discussed.

First Steps Towards a Model of Tactile Graphicacy

Abstract: This paper describes our initial steps towards developing a model of how blind people comprehend tactile graphics. In the first half of the paper we set out the aims of the model, and then consider other key issues such as the nature and scope of the model, the information it must incorporate and the outcomes it should provide. In the second half of the paper we present our ideas for the model itself, outlining the four facets that make it up — perceptual processing, cognitive skills, knowledge and cognitive development. Throughout the paper we raise questions for open debate and invite feedback on our ideas.

Damn or be damned: Arno Peters and the Struggle for the 'New Cartography'

Abstract: In this paper I am concerned essentially with the nature of the competing discourses that the Peters phenomenon engendered within cartographic circles and beyond. My critical review of the Peters phenomena opens with two personal experiences that illustrate the nature of the vociferous debate surrounding Peters’ ideas. These experiences high-light the dangers of the dogmatic attitudes that emerged on both sides:

A Taxonomy for Tactile Symbols: Creating a Useable Database for Tactile Map Designers

Abstract: This paper describes a methodology for generating a database of tactile symbols It outlines the conception, development and refinement of the database into a framework suitable for access and searching by remote users An example of how the database might work in regard to tactile line symbols is provided A critical analysis of the database highlights the inherent challenges of constructing a framework for and subsequently managing data of this type in an electronic environment We provide an overview of the potential benefits of using such a tool, and discuss how an evolving project of this kind might encourage a degree of standard practice in tactile map design

Tactile Mapping: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Abstract: The paper presents an overview the development of techniques in and uses of tactile mapping2 through the last fifty or so years. It provides both a background for the other papers in this issue,3 and an account of the current state of the art. It notes that cartography has almost as much to learn from tactile cartography as vice versa, and suggests possible routes and areas for future developments in tactile mapping and the education and care of blind and visually impaired people.

Cartographic Education and Research in the UK

Abstract: (2003). Cartographic Education and Research in the UK. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, National Report by the UK to the International Cartographic Association, pp. 141-146.

The Top Ten Maps of the Twentieth Century: A Personal View

Abstract: The first BCS President of the twenty-first century reflects on the cartography of the twentieth century and identifies those 'maps' that he believes have had significant influence on the development of the discipline during that century.

Producing Tactile Maps Using New Inkjet Technology: an Introduction

Abstract: Three common methods for producing tactile maps are mixed media, microcapsule paper and thermoform. This paper describes a new method for producing tactile diagrams using piezoelectric inkjet. To produce diagrams a photo-curing acrylic polymer ink is repeatedly printed onto a thermoplastic substrate and exposed to ultraviolet light which bonds the ink to the substrate and cures it solid. The speed and precision of the process means maps with fine, easily discriminated tactile features will be readily available to users. The new process will facilitate further psychological, psychophysical and cartographic research.

A New Generation of Land Use Mapping in the UK

Abstract: (2003). A New Generation of Land Use Mapping in the UK. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, National Report by the UK to the International Cartographic Association, pp. 121-130.

' Here is the Beech tree!' Understanding Tactile Maps in the Field

Abstract: This paper presents a successful approach to learning tactile map skills in the field. During a three-phase project, visually impaired primary school children explored a route between a field studies centre and the village church. The first stage involved using non-visual senses to discover specific landmarks and the character of the parkland surroundings. Secondly, the children made their own tactile sketch maps of the route, and discussed the choice of symbols for a vacuum formed tactile map of the study area. Finally, a more detailed exploration of the route was accomplished with the help of a tactile map that set the path in the context of its surroundings.

Reflections on Arno Peters (1916–2002)

Abstract: Arno Peters occupies a strange place in the history of cartography. It is not so much that it is because he wasn’t a cartographer — many cartographic innovations have come from outside the discipline, including the invention by political economists of thematic mapping in the 19th century — but rather the dichotomous manner in which he is read, appropriated and engaged. Since his entry on to the cartographic world scene in 1974 there has been an ongoing struggle over his work, a struggle to situate it as an object of knowledge. The question can be posed in several ways. Is it, on the one hand, about mapping, the similarity of a projection to one from 1855 (the Gall projection), cartographic claims that were rebutted but not retracted; and above all about a name (‘Peters Projection’ or ‘Gall– Peters World Map’)? Or is it, on the other hand, about political equality, racism, power and representation? In the early 1990s I decided to write a paper about Peters’ map (Crampton, 1994a). I took as my starting point a footnote comment made by Brian Harley in his discussion of the politics of mapping (Harley, 1988, fn. 74). Harley was engaged in a project to critique the discipline of cartography’s right to speak about maps and mapping, and in a larger sense to critique the map’s right to speak on behalf of others — or at least to examine the effects, silences and power of mapping. Matthew Edney, in his obituary for Harley, quite rightly characterizes Harley’s project as one of constant questioning (Edney, 1992). As part of this questioning, Harley refers to the manner in which Peters was constituted as a type of disallowed or subjugated knowledge. For Harley, the cartographic profession cast Peters’ work as inadequate at the scientiŽc, historical, and professional level. Harley questioned whether this characterization or engagement was at the right level. It was this questioning that I wanted to extend in my paper. Harley himself never wrote a sustained piece about Peters. However, he had sown the seed for me. At that time I was interested in how mapping produces a geopolitical knowledge about the world and I was particularly interested in investigating alternatives to scientiŽc knowledge production (eventually written up as my dissertation under the title Alternative Cartographies, Crampton, 1994b). It seemed to me then, as now, that ‘scientiŽc’ maps (that is, ones produced under the rubric of communicating the truth of the landscape, and that required the resources of state institutions such as the OS and USGS and standardization and normalization of knowledge) were only one possible way of producing knowledge. The question was how these scientiŽc knowledges gained their status as truth, and what happened to local, partial or disqualiŽed knowledges such as the Peters map. To say that one set of knowledge is scientiŽc and another is disqualiŽed is to aspire to power, and that in turn is a political matter. Thus while cartographers decried the Peters map as politically motivated (Arthur Robinson in particular made some thinly veiled references to Peters’ wartime dissertation on propaganda; Robinson, 1985) they themselves were making overtly political moves. In one of his earliest press conferences Peters in fact makes this political motivation of cartography very clear:

Tactile and Audio-Tactile Maps within the Canadian 'Government On-Line' Program

Abstract: The internet provides almost unlimited opportunities for accessing information and on-line services. The government of Canada is restructuring its services to take advantage of this medium. While web-based distribution of visual maps has been a reality for several years, production of maps for people with special needs poses new challenges, as additional accessibility requirements have to be met. This paper shares the Canadian experience of developing accessible tactile and audio-tactile maps for blind and partially sighted people. 'Government On-Line' involves partnerships between government departments to develop a portal specifically tailored to providing information and services for people with disabilities, their families, care givers and service providers. The Mapping for Visually Impaired Web site is an integral part of this broader initiative providing tactile maps for education, mobility training, transportation and tourism. Additionally a Web-4-All project will facilitate learning about...

Historical Mapping is Still Under-valued and Under-used

Abstract: (2003). Historical Mapping is Still Under-valued and Under-used. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, National Report by the UK to the International Cartographic Association, pp. 131-134.

The Sheldon Tapestry Maps: their Content and Context

Abstract: This paper describes the tapestry maps woven in England in the last years of the sixteenth century for the Catholic Sheldon family of Beoley (Worcs.) and Weston (Warks.). It examines the nature of the problems encountered in their design and the sources adapted for their execution with particular reference to the maps of Christopher Saxton, traditionally regarded as the 'base map'. It considers also the identity of the designer.

Arno Peters changed the World! Development Education and the Peters' Projection

Abstract: (2003). Arno Peters changed the World! Development Education and the Peters' Projection. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 57-59.

'More Attractive and Useful': the Popularity of Privately Published Blueback Charts in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: (2003). 'More Attractive and Useful': the Popularity of Privately Published Blueback Charts in the Nineteenth Century. The Cartographic Journal: Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 79-88.

Arno Peters: The man and his map

Abstract: This short collection of papers have been written in response to the sad death of Arno Peters on 2 December 2002, aged 86. Peters was born in Berlin on 22 May 1916, the son of Lucy and Bruno Peters, social activists who were involved in the labour union movement. Bruno Peters was later imprisoned by the Nazi regime for his beliefs. Among the visitors to Peters’ childhood home was the African–American academic, William Pickens. Peters read a copy of Pickens’ book Bursting Bonds, the story of black liberation that Pickens had given to his mother. The work had a profound impact on Peters’ view of the world and his belief in the equitable treatment of all peoples. Peters is best known as the man who created the, to some cartographers and geographers notorious, Peters projection and map (often referred to as the Gall-Peters projection, because of its similarity to the Gall map of 1855). Peters’ search for a map that treated all countries The Cartographic Journal Vol. 40 No. 1 pp. 51–52 June 2003 51 # The British Cartographic Society 2003

Identification of unidentified historical sites in Macedonia with the aid of a comparison of Ptolemy's and present-day coordinates

Abstract: In this paper, the coordinates (latitude and longitude) of places in regions of central Macedonia (Pieria and Emathia) contained in Claudius Ptolemy's Geographiki Yphegesis were used to investigate the location of historical sites mentioned in Ptolemy's text. Initial research was carried out in order to find which of the sites mentioned by Ptolemy have an identified position today. A computation of the coordinates of the same sites was then made using a modern cartographic system. Finally, these two sets of coordinates (Ptolemy's and the modern ones) were compared and a mathematical model was developed to transform Ptolemy's cartographic data to the present-day coordinates. In this way, the combination of the mathematical elaboration of the available data together with research on historical geography may lead to useful data in removing the uncertainty of Ptolemy's coordinates in the regions under investigation.

Arno Peters — The Man, The Map, The Message

Abstract: If this is true — and we have no reason to doubt it — it’s a remarkable story. First published in Germany in 1974, the Peters map broke into the Anglophone world in 1983 and is now available also in French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Danish editions. United Nations agencies, religious communities, international development and humanitarian service organizations are prominent among major users. It continues to make its mark in schools and universities. Not surprisingly, Peters’s work has encountered heated opposition as well as enthusiastic welcome. To develop a fully informed perspective on the map, it becomes important to know the man. Born in Berlin, Arno Peters came of age during Germany’s Nazi era. But other dynamics shaped him, notably his parents’ example of commitment to social justice. They were independent thinkers and activists; indeed, Bruno Peters, Arno’s father, was condemned to prison because he refused to conform to state totalitarianism. One of Professor Peters’s early memories, he stated during an interview in October 2001, was of a black professor from the United States being entertained in their home. The man, an author and activist in what we today might call the civil rights struggle or the liberation of the oppressed, left a lasting impression. This opening to a wider world, unusual in the Germany of that day, grew through other encounters. Together they tore at his loyalties. How could this 13-year old German youth accept the ofŽcial dogma of Aryan superiority? How could he agree with denigrating other peoples? How could he deny his own experience? As the Second World War drew to a close he saw up close the terrifying and tragic results of prevailing attitudes, of false world-views that led some people to deny the inherent dignity of others. Moral outrage amed within him; he determined to do what he could to reshape the world in a fairer, more equitable way. Even before becoming head of the Institute for Universal History he brought together an international, intercultural team of scholars to evaluate world history curricula. According to his analysis, these typically lacked balance and universality. . They concentrated on Western history, paying only scant attention to all the rest of the world. . They weighted certain centuries heavily — mostly the recent ones — as if the accomplishments of earlier times were unimportant. . They still used terms like ‘Dark Ages’, seemingly unaware that the period they called dark was a time of great owering of civilization beyond Europe’s shores. . ‘World’ histories specialized in kings and nobles and battles to the virtual neglect of any deep understanding of cultural life or how the vast majority of people lived.

Changes in Commercial Cartography in the UK and Prospects for the Future

Abstract: For some time the discipline of cartography has been increasingly relegated to the shadows, often considered the poor relation of GIS with its nouveau technology and chic acronyms. In some quarters the subject is perceived as tiresome and its function surplus to requirements, a passe discipline in which the quintessential skills of the cartographer are considered to be on a par with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and its practitioners perceived as cheerless functionaries clinging to fond memories of a lost art. Thankfully, this unfortunate stereotype is redressed in part by an apposite view that recognizes the unique skills of cartographers as being a vital ingredient in the link between GIS data and cartographic output. The fusion of the different disciplines is changing not only the role of cartographers and what they achieve but is also redeŽning the proŽle of those who are undertaking it.

Topographic maps to support courses for visually impaired students

Abstract: This short paper describes an inexpensive method for making topographic maps to support visually impaired students. The maps are mainly for courses in geology and ecology, but maps for walking and other recreational purposes have also been produced. The method is not well suited to reproduction of multiple copies, but work is continuing to investigate replication. The paper also considers the choice of materials, scale (including vertical exaggeration) and optimum methods of labelling to meet the needs of both blind and partially sighted students. The project concentrates on making tactile maps affordable, and shows that these can be effective despite using simple tools and techniques from low cost (sometimes free, scrap) material.

Aerial Photography for Mapping the UK

Abstract: The UK aerial mapping industry has, since the middle of the last decade, seen what can only be described as a series of technology, business and market-led tornados rip through it and its user base. This has transformed the industry from a traditional local authority county-based, commission ying, programme to a frenetic national, regional and city-based multi-user, multi-temporal, market-driven industry. The result is that imagery is now widely accepted as a key mapping component in the UK and a key provider of intelligent and content rich information; information that is not always on a conventional map and is not readily available.