Importance of Maps to GIScience Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Importance of Maps to GIScience - Essay Example Goodchild  introduced the term  GIScience  in the year 1992 to describe the basics of  GIS  technology.  Ã‚  These discussions dealt with the scope of a new branch of  GIS  and the obstacles in the way of its application of the technology.  GIS  is defined as the Science dealing with the interpretation and management of spatial information in scientific context, including associated technology, and implications of these for Commerce, Social life and the environment.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Information Analysis and interpretation of Data and transforming these into visual representations constitute among other things the Information Management function. Hardware and software that facilitate this process come under the category of associated methodology. Geographical Information and the GI system have tremendous applications to commerce and environment and naturally they will impact the society as a consequence.  GIS  now facilitates production of all kinds of Maps which ser ve as stimulants to visualized thinking. GI System therefore admirably fits in as Research on GI Science. Experts addressed the problem of developing visualization methods and techniques to present GI data interpret and synthesize them and explore them further, (MacEachren, 1995). This goes on further to assess the impact of these on the efficiency of problem solving. They further described the processes by which maps and graphics could be generated and the Computations systems to back these operations. The inter-connections between maps and  GIScience  and its associated steps in the process and the possible outputs also engaged many research works. Maps have the power to visually represent data, synthesize these and then explore the world. This is possible because of the ability to take selected data from the complex maze of facts and make visual presentation. The Discipline of Cartography has evolved a wide range of design guidelines which help in creating a map that best rep resents the desired results in terms of spatial patterns and inter-relationships. The traditional maps have helped in their own way in the above functions of map making. Yet, the advances made by  GIS  have revolutionized the way spatial information is synthesized, analyzed and explored. The numerous maps that needed to be made in the past for presenting different aspects of data pertaining to the same spatial area can now be overlaid on the same spatial outlay and interpreted. The paper will also study the advances made in the versatility of the map making process today, after the development of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Also, while recognizing the traditional role of maps in representation of data it must be pointed out that the maps should go further to be flexible and  Ã‚  facilitate exploration of the data underlying the maps. Therefore, in view of their ability to visualize the data and stimulate thinking about the  geo-spatial  patterns, maps are extensiv ely used in the GI Science process. The field of operation for these maps is Geo-visualization. It is a loosely defined domain and it addresses the presentation, analysis and synthesis of geographical information in combination with other disciplines including Cartography. Scientific visualization, image analysis, information visualization and analysis of exploratory data are the other disciplines contributing to the advancement. 1.1 Developments of Maps With reference to the design of maps, self-made professional maps, particularly Paper Made Topographic Maps are the work of professionals and are very practical under various conditions. Such maps will still be continued to be produced in the future, even though the demand from the users is already exerting pressure on large Map Maker organizations to adopt a different modern outlook towards the market. There