Transcript Document

History of GIS
“The human activity of graphically translating
one's perception of his/her world is now
generally recognized as being a universally
acquired skill [all peoples, all cultures]
and one that pre-dates virtually all other forms
of written communication.”
- J. Siebold
History of GIS
Characteristics of early maps:
• Sometimes just a rough but serviceable schematic
• Sometimes “realistic” with respect to the relative
size, shape, and distance and orientation between map
features.
• Sometimes purposeful distortion to make features
fit/align with mapmakers’ world view.
In general, you find better detail and more “true”
representation of spatial relationships the more “local”
the data, or at least in the (usually) central “known
world” area of the map.
Our knowledge of old maps is limited primarily
by their lack of preservation…
Wall drawing of Catal Hyük, in Anatolia, Turkey,
showing a city plan and erupting volcano
visible from the city, (ca. 6200 B.C.)
Images courtesy of
HenryDavis.com
Babylonian Clay Tablet map
(and reconstructed drawing)
from Ga-Sur, northern Iraq
(ca. 2500 B.C.)
Images courtesy of HenryDavis.com
“Turin Papyrus” map by Amennakht, royal scribe,
showing a portion of Wadi Hammamat in eastern Egypt,
prepared for one of King Ramesses IV’s quarrying expeditions
(ca. 1150 B.C.) - Egyptian
Comparison between
Turin Papyrus (left)
and modern
topographic and
geologic maps (right).
Images courtesy of James A. Harrell, University of Toledo
Map from Mawang Dui Tombs,
Western Han dynasty, China
(ca. 2nd century B.C.)
Image courtesy of Hong Kong Baptist University
Reconstruction of
Ptolemy’s “Septima Asiae Tabula”,
map of portion of
Asia east of the Caspian Sea
(ca. 90-168 A.D.) – Roman Egypt
Image courtesy of Lombard Maps
Map of
Coastal towns in the Caspian Sea Region
according to Abuzeide Balkhi,
during the Abassid Caliphates (ca. 888 A.D.)
Map image courtesy of NASA
Image courtesy of Tirdâd Gorgâni (David Gorgan)
Medieval cartographers and scribes copying and drawing
out maps by hand based on 2nd-hand data (written
accounts, field measurements, complete fantasy) and
storing them in a repository archive (later collected as
bound atlases after the printing press).
T-O style Mappa Mundi
from ca. 1130,
and T-O diagram
from 1472 printing
by Guntherus Ziner
details from the “Mapa de Cuauhtinchan”,
produced by a Chichimec community from
Cuauhtinchan as part of a legal dispute over land with
the Spaniards and another Indian community,
showing theological beginnings, historical migrations,
and the founding of Cuauhtinchan during the twelfth
to the fifteenth centuries.
(ca. 1580s A.D.)
Images courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis,
the Mesoamerican Research Foundation, and Harvard University.
Marshall Islanders’ Stick Chart for
Navigation (reproduction)
showing islands and wave swell refraction
and interference patterns
Image courtesy of the Mariners Museum
Marshall Islanders’ Stick Chart for
Navigation
showing islands and wave swell and
interference refraction patterns
Image courtesy of Smithsonian “Ocean Planet” exhibit
and NASA’s SeaWifs program.
Section of the Tabula Peutingeriana, detail: Rhodes & detail: Greece, Crete, Turkey
(1598 copy of a 12th century MS)
Original (lost) copy by Castorius circa 1st century A.D.
early road map [painted itinerary] of the imperial highways of the Roman world
Images courtesy of HenryDavis.com
Look familiar???
History of GIS
Up through the 18th and 19th centuries, trend towards
inclusion of greater and greater detail as well as more
ornate and more artistically elaborate appearances of the
maps.
Reconstruction of the
World map according
to Pomponius Mela
(ca. 37 A.D.) - Roman
Image courtesy of HenryDavis.com
Portolan Chart of the Mediterranean World.
by Mateus Prunes (ca. 1559) - Majorca
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
“Edo yori Nagasaki made yadotsuke,funamichi meisho kyseki”
(Edo to Nagasaki, Inns and Historic Sites),
showing main land route from Edo to Osaka, and the land-sea routes from Edo to Nagasaki,
including inns and historic sites.
(ca. 1660-1736) - Japan
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
“Huang He Wan Li Tu”
(Pictorial Map of Yellow River),
showing the Yellow River in true proportions,
with houses representing population of villages (1 house = 100 families)
China, early Ming Dynasty, facsimile of 1368-1378 original.
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
N
“Leo Belgicus de Noort”
A map showing the Low Country [the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg,
and part of northern France] portrayed as a Lion
( ca. 1611) – Amsterdam
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
“Captain John Smith’s Map of Jamestown” ( ca. 1612)
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
History of GIS
Trends reverse in 1800s to today with trend towards less
ornate and more simplified/utilitarian appearances of the
maps, standardized symbology and projections, and explicit
often standardized scales to facilitate manual tracing and
overlay of data from one map to another.
www.davidrumsey.com
Political World Map (Winkel-Tripel projection) from National Geographic (2005)
Detail of VA/MD/DE 1:500,000 map
by Raven Maps, Inc. (2006)
Edge matched portions of Chalottesville, VA – East and …– West
7.5 Minute 1:24,000 Quadrangle maps from USGS (1996)
Image courtesy of UVA’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH)
Washington, D.C., Metro Map
Detail of Rivanna River Water Trail Map
History of computers + GIS
Post 1960s = computerized systems of cataloging and
analyzing datasets, including geographic data, begin to be
developed and used, but are still small, post-hoc, agencyspecialized, not wide available, or still in their infancy.
(ex. MIMO (Map In-Map Out) by W. Tobler, 1959)
(ex. CGIS (Canada G.I.S) by Government of Canada, 1963) *first true GIS
(ex. Harvard Lab for Computer Graphics, 1964) training & research
(ex. GBF/DIME (Geographic Base File using Dual Independent Map Encoding)
of US Census, 1967)
(ex. GIRAS (Geographic Information Retrieval and Analysis System) by USGS, 1973)
(ex. SLDB (Swedish Land Data Bank) early 1970’s)
(ex. LAMIS (Local Authority Management Information System), UK, early 1970’s)
(ex. JIS (Joint Information System), UK, early 1970’s)
History of computers + GIS
Early 1970’s: new satellites (ex. LandSat) pointing back at
Earth and monitoring the surface and atmosphere start
generating huge amounts of data for analysis and continue
to spur development.
Late 1970’s/early 1980’s: development of integrated
software or computer code in publicly or commercially
available packages
ex. McIDAS (1973) by U.Wisc. - SSEC
ex. ERDAS (1978) by Leica-Geosystems
ex. ArcInfo by ESRI (1981/82), Intergraph (?) *
* these started circa 1970 as consulting firms
ex. GRASS by US Army Corp (1982/1985)
ex. MAPINFO (1986)
ex. IDRISI (1987) by Clark Univserity, MA
History of computers + GIS
Continued development to this day…
… including incorporation of GIS functions within
other types of primarily non-GIS software
ex. MATLAB, SAS, Auto-CAD, etc.
Current push towards Open-Source GIS platforms,
GIS data servers, and/or adoption of more “standard” data
formats
ex. Open GISs: Quantum GIS, GAIA, uDig
ex. Geoserver + Geonetwork, Mapserver, Deegree
ex. ISO/OGC Standards for Geo-information,
PostgreSQL/PostGIS data catalogs/services
History of ArcInfo/ArcGIS
First commercial release by ESRI of
ArcInfo in 1981/82.
“It combined computer display geographic features, such as points, lines,
and polygons [the ARC part], with a database management tool for assigning
attributes to these features [the INFO part]. Originally designed to run on
minicomputers [mainframes], ARC/INFO offered the first modern GIS. As the
technology shifted to UNIX and later to the Windows operating systems,
ESRI evolved software tools that took advantage of these new platforms.
This shift enabled users of ESRI software to apply the principles of
distributed processing and data management.” - ESRI website
So originally a merger of the geographic coordinates, shapes, and
topology (in highly standardized data formats: Arc) with an early
relational database (Info) to handle the attribute information and
that could be easily modified to handle whatever kinds of ancillary
data were necessary.
Components:
Arc (command line main module/program workhorse)
ArcEdit (command line editor w/ simple graphic display)
ArcPlot (command line module for generating maps)
Info (command line interface to the Info databases)
Ability to work with simple 1-layer raster data (grids) and vectorbased 3-D surfaces (tins) came soon afterwards.
History of ArcInfo/ArcGIS
ArcView introduced in early 1992.
Limited functionality. Primarily meant for the display of preexisting datasets, principally those created with ArcInfo, and the
production of printed maps. Basically an end-user product.
BUT it did have a decent graphical users interface (GUI) that
worked well in the Windows PC environment with the point-andclick mentality. (Much much better than the clunky ArcTools
interface attempt for ArcInfo at this time!)
Mid 1990’s: later versions of ArcView expand the capabilities with
new data editing and analysis functions BUT lacks the vast full
functionality of ArcInfo (and the editing and new resulting datastructures are nowhere near as precise and accurate as they are in
ArcInfo… at least for shapefiles… grids ARE ArcInfo grids but
require special software “extensions”).
History of ArcInfo/ArcGIS
ArcGIS 8.0 introduced in 2001. ( 9.0 in 2004, 9.3 in 2008 )
Re-design/Re-engineering of earlier stand-alone products (though
the data was [mostly] interchangeable).
Combines the look and feel of earlier ArcView versions (up to 3.4)
and its GUI and menuing options with the underlying “engine” and
full functionality of ArcInfo.
BUT *still* subdivided into a series of components/levels/products
with corresponding limits on the functionality…
From basic --> full functionality (and $$ --> $$$$$) :
ArcReader (free)
ArcView (“new” ArcView)
ArcEditor
ArcGIS desktop
with Workstation ArcInfo
ArcIMS - integrated (?) with ArcGIS but stand-alone features for
providing customized maps and databases over the Internet.
Components of
ArcGIS Desktop/ArcInfo
ArcCatalog
-
for managing datasets.
ArcMap
-
for displaying data, creating maps, and analysis.
ArcTools
-
stand-alone (non-graphic) analysis and data
conversion.
* (now part of the toolbars of the other programs)
ArcScene
-
3-D display tool.
ArcGlobe
-
3-D display tool displayed onto a spherical globe.
Workstation ArcInfo
- same good old underlying program that
actually runs most of the manipulation and analysis (?) that you
ask the other parts of ArcGIS to do thru their GUIs. Still with the
same command line driven subunits (ArcEdit, Grid, Info).
Note: ArcGIS runs only in the Windows NT/2000/XP environment, but ArcInfo is
still available “stand-alone” on multiple platforms, including Unix.