This presentation will tell three parallel stories - of the last 50 years of developments in cartography, how the SoC has reflected those, and my career. It will offer some thoughts on how cartography might develop in the future, and how the Society will need to adapt to those changes.
Atlases obviously allowed for commentary in text form. Although early atlases were just collections of maps. The earliest atlases were not called by that name at the time of their publication, as term was introduced in 1595 by Mercator. Some argue that Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was the first in concept in 1570.
Jump to 1970s
Always wanted to be a surveyor. Image – three surveyors and another guy – Mt Rushmore (Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, but not Roosevelt)
Credit – Roger Anson, Mike Childs, Harold Fullard
Mike C – dog’s doodah
Choice: oil industry versus academia
How to tell a cartographer: glasses and black lines on their fingers
Tools of choice
Compilation – remember those?
Output - maps for books and papers. Mono
If you were lucky
Gradual move to computers – SYMAP (developed in mid 60s at Harvard) was first I used
Availability of graphic software – Adobe Illustrator 1987, Aldus Freehand 1988, CorelDRAW 1989
Move to graphic software for mapping – CorelDRAW in my case
Around here I went for editorial/compilation job at Michelin – didn’t get it for some reason
Influence of GIS - Jack and Laura Dangermond founded ESRI in 1969 as a privately held consulting group. The business began with $1100 from their personal savings and operated out of their home in Redlands, California.
Close of Oxford Polytechnic carto course. Close of traditional map publishers
Move to graphic design work. Move to VLE support (job with no cartography)
Keeping map interest by Journal of Maps reviewing, where this geomorph map of mine was published
Move to contributing to OpenStreetMap. New skills – xml, postgis, mapnik, style sheets, let’s put everything on the map
Neocartography. Stories within maps – Christian Nold’s emotion maps
Full circle. Working on an OS 6” 1st edition research project – eventually will be a blockbuster book
Article from Financial Times Weekend magazine June 1 2014
See Stephen Hall’s book – Mapping the next millennium
Telenav has a lot of GPS traces. We process all of those into navigable information. If you take all the people traveling on the freeway and they all go 55, you know that’s probably the speed limit. If nobody is turning left at an intersection, there is probably a turn restriction there.
Google projects – via Ed Parsons’ talk.
What about drones? BARSC says huge increase in start-ups. Buildings/developments in urban areas and in micro agricultural monitoring
Unplaced populations or floating populations. Pumice rafts, Floating Maldives,Sealand.
Not a single map or article by me!
SoC – roll with it. Embrace the changes. Talk to new cartographers (neo session). Influence the software developers. Define and defend the subject.