Comments 6

地图学的新黄金时代

Apr 18, 2013 Brian McClendon

加利福尼亚州山景城——本世纪最勇敢的先驱之一，来自刚果民主共和国的移民诺伊·迪亚库巴马（NOE Diakubama）目前居住在巴黎。他用在线绘图工具绘制了他所居住的姆班达卡（Mbandaka）村的首张地图，他和他的妻子2009年来已经对这张图修改超过100,000次。诺伊在地图上准确地绘制了姆班达卡和居住在那里的村民。

诺伊并不是地图测绘领域唯一的先驱。在线制图者队伍庞大而且持续发展，绘制出反应鲜为人知地区状况的方便查阅的实用地图，并因此改变了人们的生活。

在从十五至十七世纪的地理大发现年代，克里斯托弗·哥伦布、费迪南德·麦哲伦和詹姆斯·库克等冒险家踏上了到新西兰和纽芬兰等遥远国度的危险旅程，并绘制出反应航程情况的详细地图。通过普及地理知识，他们拓展了人们对世界的认识、强化了贸易并且助推了工业革命。

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Derek Wilson Apr 22, 2013

Mr. McClendon's description of cartography's interesting new directions, while true, omits some salient aspects of these new directions. Data is becoming more readily available, due to the work of these citizen mappers. However, we must qualify that data is not cartography, despite the importance of data to cartography.

Mr. McClendon is much too servile to his Google master by mentioning only the Google opportunities for citizen mappers. Besides Google Map Maker, Bing Maps, Open Street Map, ESRI ArcGIS Online, and the USGS offer worthwhile opportunities for citizen mappers.

Some citizen mappers, and professional cartographers for that matter, object to the Google's Terms of Use, which citizen mappers and cartographers of all stripes should thoroughly investigate and compare at least to the other resources I have mentioned to ensure they are satisfied with agreement they are entering into. To my mind, Open Street Map and USGS Terms of Use are most collegial. Work done by and for USGS being basically in the public domain, making that opportunity very attractive for both citizen mappers and professional cartographers. Other license terms are more restrictive. Citizen mappers and cartographers should research their options.

Quality is a key consideration for this crowd-sourced data. The malicious may attempt deceit. Open Street Map, to my knowledge, is the only crowd-sourced mapping project with a quality control procedure.

We should welcome the appearance of citizen mappers and cartographers providing a grass-roots new technology renewal of an old tradition. Let's ensure this great work performed freely by free citizens remains freely available to all citizens.
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