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Cartography is dead, long live the map makers

Seems like only last year, ah yes it was last year, that the bored press hits upon it annual “shock horror – nobody can read maps” story. This year there is a slightly different spin, due to the input of the British Cartographic Society (BCS) complaining that nobody is creating maps like they used to.. 

Modern online maps and satnavs don’t display as much detail, it is argued by the BCS, missing out features like churches, village greens , etc., of course this is rubbish! Most online maps contain more detail than any traditionally designed map could ever do, but that detail is hidden behind an interactive interface, features are displayed dependent upon the level of zoom (scale) or the purpose of the map itself.

Cartography the craft of compiling maps by selecting the information to be displayed and how it is to be represented in print, has a long history, but the traditional skill is becoming less relevant as the final media used to communicate is rarely paper, hence this desperate cry for attention. 

That’s not to say the principals of design are not important in the creation of “maps” for screen display, indeed one could argue for the need of a “new” cartography which adopts rather than ignores the capabilities of screen based maps to portray information dynamically.

The criticism also fails to take into account the biggest impact of the online revolution as far a mapping is concerned, now anyone with a web browser can be the publisher of maps, you no longer need to be a government institution or a large commercial company to produce a map and publish it to a global audience, Mash-ups anyone ?

Will the people mapping the impact of Hurricane Gustav over the next few days, care that perhaps they don’t have the academic qualifications and experience to call themselves cartographers or will they just get on and share useful information more quickly that could every have been done before ?

As the courses offering to teach cartography close down, there is no dedicated course in cartography taught at any UK university anymore for example, the craft/science of cartography has a choice adapt to a new world or face the same fate as  Coopers, Millrights, Locomotive firemen, and Chimney-sweeps!

“Cor blimey Mary Poppins, they don’t need us cartographers to make their maps anymore and no mistake”

If you think this seems farfetched, there is reason behind my Disney reference..

In the early 1990’s Disney Animation Studios was having great success with movies such as the Lion King, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Indeed they opened up an animation studio as part of the theme park in Florida, so that visitors could see animators working on the next film in production. I visiting this studio two weeks ago on vacation, it was shut down in 2004, when Disney stopped it’s traditional animation efforts, as it began concentrating on its own computer generated efforts and the outputs of the young upstarts at Pixar.

I’m sure at one point the animators of Disney looked at the crude early output of pixar and had similar comments to those of the BCS president, lets hope she and the cartographers she represents are able to adapt to the new technology, as the change is coming and the pixar of the cartographic world is an army of thousands of map-makers contributing to the most detailed global map every produced.. The GeoWeb.

Written and submitted from the BA T5 Lounge at Heathrow Airport, using it’s free 802.11 network.

25 replies on “Cartography is dead, long live the map makers”

So an online map shows minimal detail and is good for driving but doesn’t show you much about the landscape. On the other hand navigating through London with an OS 1:1250 map would be a nightmare. Is she advocating that people should always use more detailed maps or simply complaining that people aren’t taking any notice of their surroundings?

At least with an online/electronic map the potential is there to add detail at different zooms or on demand. I would have thought that a cartographic group would be getting excited about these possibilities.

The mainframe is dead too? I get the point here, however I think the paintbrush treatment of a complex subject does it some disservice. Do we need cartographers to make all maps? Absolutely not. Do we need them for some maps? Absolutely yes. We also need maps, online or paper, to reflect sound cartographic principles because those principles are based in years of research. Your definition limiting cartography to print is erroneous.

Just because it is easy to make maps online does not mean that it is easy to make good maps online. Anyone can use a word processor to write, yet much of what is written is useless to most people.

Much about online mapping is problematic, not only to cartographers but to many disciplines. So called mashups can combine data that is, yes, geographically overlapping. Yet the data is often from sources of different accuracies, time, and scale. Data sources vary in reliability also. So what results from the mashups? Without proper oversight and discipline, mashups are often meaningless or worse, misleading.

I’m all for the explosion of maps and wider uses of geographic information, online and off. But to cast aside cartography, a discipline that was, in part, responsible for us getting here in the first place, and is still actively improving geographic visualization, is simply wrong.

When I started out in the geospatial industry, part of my job was to author maps for custom web applications. the first thing I was taught (told to do) was to strip out as much detail as possible for one main reason – use the map to get the right answer as simply as possible, with minimal clutter.

Ed says “the final media used to communicate is rarely paper…” Interesting, as when I head to office printer there are often a few printed maps and directions waiting to be collected. The recycling bin has a collection of discarded directions. I’m sure if an objective is to direct someone from the office to the sandwich shop you draw them a map with 4 lines and a circle. Of course there is a geeky way of sending them directions to their phone. But having witnessed 2 suited and booted techno geeks back in 1999 spending 10 mins trying to swap “e-business cards” via infrared on their phones – paper and pen sometimes rule.

Finally, I have watched non-geo people looking at online maps (in a non-sinister way). It never ceases to amaze me how excited the unenlightened get when looking at aerial photography “It even shows Fred’s extension up at number 32…” – not much in the way of cartographic skills required to set-up that layer.

Traditional cartography generally focused on printing technologies and methods of getting maps printed on paper, using many methods and standards developed during the 16th century and later. Until approximately three decades ago, cartography was entrenched in the printing and publishing domain.

Computer-generated map-making technology emerged in the 1985-1995 period following developments from 1965-1985. When government agencies switched from map scribing and plate-making for printing to the use of computer-generated graphical representations, it marked the end of the old cartographic paradigm. It also marked the beginning of the current situation when new mapping developments expanded into many new markets outside government.

Traditional cartographers generally switched to a GIS focus or, in some cases, retired. The fundamentals of cartography transitioned to digital mapping and GIS software, so that many of the principles of cartography were applied using algorithms rather than by the acquired skills of the cartographer.

The reality today is that GIS greatly lowered the cost of making maps and created many new geographic visualization opportunities. Map making functions moved into the mainstream of information-based technology and away from older printing technologies. In making the transition, the knowledge and skills of data manipulation, data analysis and geo-visualization pushed the mapping knowledge domain into the IT and management domains. Knowledge of how to organize complex geospatial data and communicate its meaning still requires advanced geographic knowledge of geospatial organization and graphic representation. Many online mash-ups are basically push-pin maps created using little geographic knowledge, but provide great value to many users.

By ignoring trends outside their field, cartographers slow-to-change attitudes led to their own decline. Other examples show that elevator operators were replaced by a panel of buttons and complex map printing technologies have been replace by the print button on a graphic browser interface. The world has moved on for the better, I believe.

Cartography does matter.

Just imagine the response if Google took the moderately well rendered stack of TeleAtlas maps out of GM and replaced them with a stack that contained OS 1:250k mini scale, 1:50k Raster (very possibly the ugliest map ever), StreetView and 1:10k Raster. People would respond with a yuck!!! The attractive maps are one of the reasons that people preferred GM to MultiMap or Streetmap.co.uk

Have a look at the styling of the maps in OSM and you will see what can be achieved with good styling.

Cartographers need to focus their skills on the way information is presented on the web rather than bemoaning the decline of paper maps.

Steven

Steven,

I’ve got to stick up for OS mapping here!

OK it does not look great at the wrong scale in web mapping apps – but it is still the UK’s favourite mapping (Multimap certainly got a lot of complaints when there was a brief period without OS mapping on the site). Remember a lot of people still use web mapping sites to go and print a map of an area of interest and look to OS mapping as a familiar cartography.

Go for a hike somewhere else in Europe and you will soon be missing your excuisite manual cartography on OS 1:25k.

Tim

Tim,

I agree OS 1:25K maps are great for walkers and can work well online is displayed carefully, but Steven does also have a good point about 1:50K mapping. We both know from our time at the OS, is only exists because people are too afraid to kill it, it’s really not useful for very much any more (1:25k has in effect replaced it), and cannot be commercial viable.

ed

Ed,

There is nothing wrong with the OS 50k per se, the problem is nothing has been done to innovate its cartography for the last 20(?) years. Which brings us back to the need for some fearless modernising cartographers…

If it was automatically rendered it could be commercially viable. Now I wonder if anyone thought of doing that at the OS…

Tim

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