Does Digital Cartography Have More Value Than Non-digital Mapping?

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By Jeff Thurston | 09 March 2012 | 1607

A lot has been written about digital cartography over the years. Most of it relates to the advantages that digital cartography provides as compared to non-digital mapping including improved  collaboration, less redundancy, greater efficiency in production etc. As mobility technologies develop, the need for ‘going digital’ increases. This is becoming the case as we begin to see tablets and other portable devices begin to out-sell laptops and desktops.

A lot has been written about digital cartography over the years. Most of it relates to the advantages that digital cartography provides as compared to non-digital mapping including improved  collaboration, less redundancy, greater efficiency in production etc. As mobility technologies develop, the need for ‘going digital’ increases. This is becoming the case as we begin to see tablets and other portable devices begin to out-sell laptops and desktops.

The switch is on. Tablets like the iPad and iPod, Windows and Android devices all pulling the world’s population into a mobile future. We don’t see people sending geospatial files through the mail, in fact, most postal agencies are experiencing rapid and fundamental changes as people share files digitally and connect through social media innovations.

As cartographic activities moved along with this change, many people experienced the benefits of digital cartography. They could make maps easier, particularly as automation increase, and they could share data with colleagues more readily – giving rise to people voicing a need for more openness.

Another benefit that arose with digital cartography and increased sharing was the ability to integrate and re-create new data, perform geospatial analysis and to be able to push new found knowledge around the global at the press of a button.

This ability to move data quickly across long distances was not immediately available, and has only recently grown in large measure due to improved broadband availability and mobility devices that link data to internet devices (ie. tablets) – but also having the applications to due something useful through them.

As the shift continues toward online, the advantages grow well beyond paper. Even display billboards, digital billboards and other poster type displays that previously depended upon paper, are being replaced by digital displays as innovations in LED lighting improve. In a sense, these displays are causing whole cities to become brighter, more colourful and filled with more dynamic displays – resulting in more animation from a map perspective.  Are we moving faster toward 2D linked to 4D, skipping over 3D in many cases to add time to 2D digital billboards and displays?

Because cartography has traditionally been used for large audience displays, tourism mapping, presentations, and other places where informing people is important – and paper was used, then these advantages carry forward to these circumstances as well.

Suddenly, anyone around the world can create a map for use in places where they do not live, thereby providing high quality services to the most remote of locations quickly. It is this benefit that can perhaps carry the largest benefits, it extends well beyond the sharing data, collaborating phases, to embrace the publishing and knowledge sharing aspects of information exchange.

Transformation is often the outcome of more knowledge. As digital cartography becomes increasingly available to more people, with greater amounts of details, including cultural intelligence embedded into it, then it should be realised that we are at a time when true, effective and positive transformational change can take place – like no other time.