2 messages.-----Johnnie
-------------------------------------------------
>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:00:51 -0500
>From: Dino Caruso <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: GIS & cartography: a short rant
Thank you Nat, we are working hard to bring these worlds together
Cheers,
Dino Caruso - Manager, Sales and Marketing
Avenza Software - Developers of MAPublisher and MAPublisher GPS
Nat Case wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Beware, beware.
>
> I am reminded of the Intergraph "workshop" every year at IMTA (they
> don't do it anymore) where they basically said, "The Mac will be dead in
> ten years, Windows is the way of the future... so you should use our
> system." Any argument based on "X is fading fast, so you should buy Y"
> is, at best, problemmatic.
>
> To say that automated GIS is the future, and that cartography as a
> human-controlled process is ludicrous.
>
> I don't believe you can automate the designed element of maps any easier
> than you can automate technical writing. Maps are used by people, and
> for really GOOD maps that stand on their own, you need someone able to
> adjust the map so it will be fully understood _by people_.
>
> So why can't design be automated. I'm annoyed as anyone who tries to
> make design be about sticking one's nose in the air and calling oneself
> an "artiste"; it is about experience and a sense of visual proportion
> and expression -- not emotional, "expressive" expression necessarily,
> but expression in the sense of "let me try to express this idea to you."
> That sense is something developed over time, and not something I can see
> being automated except in creating very specific and narrow "styles"
> (i.e. one could automate production of a standard map series, but not
> the production of maps in general.
>
> That said, the tools of GIS are designed for data crunching and on-the
> fly rendering; the creation of graphically sound pieces is secondary.
> Likewise, drawing tools are designed for efficient, intuitive creation
> of graphically sound artwork, but have little in the way of spatial
> data-crunching behind them.
>
> My conclusion:
>
> GIS and Cartography are names we give to two different but overlapping
> functions. Both are designed to create tools for use by people to
> navigate, analyse, and understand the world around them. Asking which
> contains which is a bit like asking the same about history and regional
> studies. The point in creating the specialties is to create focus on a
> particular sort of tool.
>
> The argument seems to me peculiarly academic, in that the answer means a
> lot more in academic circles, where one's funding, tenure, lab-space,
> etc., depend on demonstrating relevance. In the commercial world, the
> question is moot: given a particular problem, the answer is to find the
> _best_ tools, not necesarily the GIS tool or the carto tool. As near as
> I can tell, there will always be a need for both types of tool-sets, and
> very often both. I applaud Avenza's sense, especially, of trying to find
> ways to make it easier for these two tool-sets to work together... we
> have a long way to go.
> --
> Nat Case
> Hedberg Maps, Inc.
>
> Publisher of PROFESSOR PATHFINDER Maps
> ___________________________________________________
> Production Office (White River Jct, VT): [log in to unmask]
> Business and Sales Office (Minneapolis, MN): [log in to unmask]
--
======================================================
Dino Caruso
[log in to unmask]
Avenza Software
Visit http://www.avenza.com
FREE SOFTWARE: http://www.avenza.com/jam GET JAMBuddy
800-884-2555
905-639-3330
Fax: 905-639-7057
=======================================================
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>From: "Taylor,Iain [Dartmouth]" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: RE: GIS and cartography
>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 13:03:07 -0400
Try telling Isambard Kingdom Brunell and the transatlantic cable layers
and the transcontinental railway builders they were not living in
techno-times!
My point is that only the future will tell. The past tells us that when
there are alternatives one does not always 'win' over another, sometimes
the dialectic ensures that things gradually change into one-another or
become something different in the process. Do not confuse process with
content.
Dr. Iain C. Taylor
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>>From: William Penberthy <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: RE: GIS and Cartography
>>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:16:08 -0700
>
>But we are living in a techno-time now - this makes dogs-years seem slow...
>And we've been here for years already...
>
>Bill Penberthy - [log in to unmask]
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Taylor,Iain [Dartmouth] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>>Sent: Thursday, February 19, 1998 8:08 AM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: GIS and Cartography
>>
>>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>>But the sailing ship and steam ship coexisted for 70 years each having
>>their special advantages!
>>
>>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>
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