Współczesne oblicze kartografii przeznaczonej do powszechnego użytku

Ciołkosz, Andrzej

Współczesne oblicze kartografii przeznaczonej do powszechnego użytku

Abstract

Zmiany polityczne oraz rozwój technologiczny wywarły znaczące piętno na kartografii. W artykule przedstawiono problematykę pozycjonowania obiektów, zmiany stosowanych w Polsce układów odwzorowawczych i ich dostosowanie do układów europejskich, nowe źródła pozyskiwania danych i nowe produkty kartograficzne, zmiany technologiczne w zakresie opracowania i publikowania map, a wreszcie problematykę tajności opracowań kartograficznych oraz dostępność map wydawanych w wersji papierowej i cyfrowej. Wspomniano również o ograniczeniach wielu nowych produktów kartograficznych pojawiających się na rynku.

Over the past several dozen of years one can observe great changes that have occurred in cartography. They result from a change in both the political and economic situation, as well as technological development. These changes occurred at all stages of mapping process, from the determination of the position of objects on the ground, through the development of new coordinate systems, the application of new data, up to new methods of map compilation and reproduction. In Poland, the abolition of censorship had significant influence on changes in cartography. The article presents coordinate systems used in Poland since the end of World War 2. In the civil service incorrect maps have been used for many years. Only since the beginning of present century maps are compiled and published without falsifying the position of points, angles and distances between them. Aerial photographs taken in visible and in nonvisible part of the spectrum, and above all satellite images have been u sed a s new valuable data sources. Aerial and satellite remote sensing provided a great deal of new data. They have given the opportunity to compile many new thematic maps, which were impossible to develop on the basis of existing sources of information. These maps include, among others, maps of : forest degradation, thermal pollution of rivers and reservoirs, air pollution, ozone depletion in the atmosphere, relief of surface water in the oceans, distribution of wind speeds and their directions over the oceans, relief of seabed, as well as compilation of uniform and accurate DTM of most of land surface of the Earth. Microwave satellite imagery also enabled mapping the areas around the poles. Compilation of maps of these areas at high frequencies helped to define the dynamics and concentration of the sea ice as well as changes in Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. One of the satellites of new generation collects the data in various part of spectrum and on the basis of this data it compiles directly on its board the summary information in the form of thematic maps that are transmitted to ground receiving stations. A new process of compiling and printing maps is also a positive proof of changes that occurred in cartography. Digital technology is being used instead of the traditional one. All the process of map compilation is done in the display screen using data collected in spatial and relational databases. Printing a few copies of maps is done using ink-jet or laser printers, but in a case of large edition the traditional method of lithography is used. New technology of map compiling has led to the emergence of new forms of presentation, among others, multimedia web maps, and maps in mobile navigation systems. It also allowed the map recipients a compilation of maps according to their own requirements. The problem of map confidentiality has also been presented in the paper. The topographic maps were largely inaccessible to the public in Poland for almost half a century. A new accurate topographic, thematic and other maps dedicated to the public use have been compiled only after the lifting of restrictions imposed by the political authorities on cartographic production. Today’s availability of topographic and thematic maps has been described in the paper. The author also states that the availability of a computer-assisted methods of map compilation and easy access to data sources does not always positively affect the correctness of the mapping. There are a lot of new maps on the market developed not by cartographers. The maps have not been compiled according to the rules developed over decades by cartographers and that is why they are often difficult to read, or even unintelligible to the average map user.