Cartography - wow! What is that?
Yep, I will agree. Maps have been misinterpreted since two rocks were set
down relative to each other. Was this poor cartography?
The information age map is something even more difficult. It squirms in
near real-time under our spatial scalpels and our Z-rays. Virtual
fly-though landscapes, pusedo-topographies of weird indices, datum
confusion, themed abstractions, the calculus of picography, and likelihood
of personal and National privacy loss all represent the toxic gases of
Internet geography.
Give me MORE bandwidth! I got to breathe!
My failure experiences with GIS and GPS integration and now their linkage
with spatial photography, have always left me in one of two conditions -
knowing exactly where I was, what it looked like but not why I was there
versus not knowing exactly where I was but knowing why I was there and what
I would be looking for.
A best guess is that over 70 billion film photo-images are created every
year. In this past quarter of 2000 for the first time digital cameras
apparently out sold like-featured and priced film cameras. Kodak's and
Fujitsu's response to this trend? More models of the disposable camera - a
lot more spontaneous photos taken.
And what photo-technology is the all time photo-junkster enabling more "One
more just in case" photographs? The digital camera by several magnitudes
over film.
Why? You can easily review and erase the bad digital results - keep the best
of six. And after three or four uses of even a $300 64MB Memory Wand digital
image ownership costs are about equal in average cost compared to film cost
plus development, printing, and scanning.
What if every "digital" camera recorded on to each of its photo-images or
video clips a metadata set including important camera settings, a GPS
location, UTC time and the like? What sort of digital family trip albums
might evolve? What sort of maps might be produced? What sort of weird
indices might we discover? Would it be a photo-map or map-photo? Would there
be good and bad cartophotography ( or is it photocartography)?
Be aware. This sort of geographical leverage via spatially indexed photo and
audio information can be and is available today via JPEG. Kodak's digital
camera lead is unique in that it has an accessible and macro-izable
operating system. Given the Kodak name plus the actual sanity of their
implementation of "spatial" JPEG metadata these cameras create the defacto
standard for spatial metadata within the JPEG community. Hewlett Packard is
building cameras with the like operating system.
Freeware and low cost scripts from Kodak and others can set these cameras'
digital features to change the camera's personality. The scripts are
available on the Web and are easily loaded into the camera via USB or IR
connection. The DC 290 cameras can also be directly controlled and triggered
via one of these external connections.
The spatial photography script will make the programmable camera aware that
it is connected to a NMEA GPS device, provide the in-camera program to parse
the NMEA messages, and process to build and write the JPEG header to include
latitude, longitude, UTC time, plus camera settings like speed, aperture,
and focus.
A spatially smart image. It tells us where it was taken, its UTC reference,
the image's shutter settings, focal length, aperture, and other stuff - like
a compass determined orientation of the camera (which way was it pointing in
magnetic space relative to its landscape), a laser's range to object in the
image, a delivery invoice's bar-coded tracking number, some seconds of audio
notes, and other multimedia "meta data". "There is gold in them thar
images!"
Does the map representation of spatial videos, images, audio recordings,
notes, and other multimedia samplings create opportunities for good and bad
"cartography"?
Remember these are new content-rich objects offering new indices into
spatial relationships. Show me all places where the audio index recognized
morning robin calls themed by time of day? Find for me any crime scene's
spatial photography that includes a candle stick weapon of this size/design,
at or near a alley, and within 150 meters of a subway entrance anywhere?
If the amateur or professional video-editor's general intent is a movie or
documentary organized as a linear presentation of concurrent events in time
or threads of connection through time, what about the non-linear access
potential of personal DVD viewing and story decision making? Build a
complex many pathwayed fiction or student's ebook with features found in
most 32 bit arcade games; variable story lines within situations controlled
by progress and skill in the game/story.
Now add spatial indexization of video, image, audio, and text. New concepts
in idexing imagery and audio to enable and enrich alternate story path ways
for multimedia content masters.
A number of years ago some insightful folks created a spatial CDROM video of
Aspen, Colorado. Via a screen's touch you could control a cursor to steer
the play back through the streets of Aspen's CDROM video as seen from the
perspective of a driver. You too can construct such abstractions.... but is
it good cartography, movie making, or photocartography?
the list that will not fade ......
FWIW
MidNight Mapper
aka Neil
7/8/00
application/ms-tnef
