Proceedings of the Seminar on Electronic Atlases held at Eötvös Loránd University, Visegrád, Hungary, April 27-29, 1993

Summary

This volume documents the joint seminar on electronic atlases held in Visegrád, Hungary, in April 1993 under three commissions of the International Cartographic Association: Education and Training, Map and Spatial Data Use, and National and Regional Atlases. Bringing together researchers and practitioners from Europe, North America, Asia, and other regions, the meeting presented twenty-two papers, software demonstrations, and extensive discussions concerning the production, use, analysis, and teaching of atlases and spatial data in electronic formats. The introductory argument situates cartography at a decisive transition from a discipline centred mainly on finished graphic products to one concerned with an integrated process of collecting, storing, processing, modelling, and communicating spatial information. A map is defined as a reduced, generalized, and organized structural model of information about the real world. Its model character rests on projection or representation, selective reduction of reality, and pragmatics—that is, the subject, audience, time, and purpose for which it is created. Digital cartographic models expand the capacity to store dense and changing information, represent relationships, and support interactive analysis; at the same time, they require renewed definitions of maps and atlases and greater attention to intermediate stages of cartographic information transfer. The contributions examine emerging multimedia, hypermedia, computer-graphics, personal-computer, and CD-ROM technologies in national, regional, thematic, and school atlases. Practical topics include project planning, production tools, database maintenance, common-border data, digital facsimiles, image integration, marketing, and the organization of sustainable atlas workflows. A complementary group of studies considers how electronic maps and atlases are actually used, including applications in policymaking, emergency management, education, children’s learning, and public communication. These studies emphasize that the expansion and diversification of map audiences create new demands for usability, intelligibility, interface design, and instruction in atlas use and multimedia production. The volume also addresses the relationship between scientific precision and cartographic aesthetics. Computer graphics permit systematic variation of symbols, colour combinations, layouts, and other visual parameters, creating opportunities to evaluate design through simulation and psychological or sociological user testing. Although aesthetic responses remain conditioned by experience, culture, habits, and emotion, digital experimentation may support a more rational understanding of visual harmony without reducing design to fixed universal rules. Overall, the proceedings present the electronic atlas as a meeting point of cartographic theory, spatial databases, visualization, multimedia communication, and education. They show that computerization is not merely a new means of producing conventional maps, but a structural transformation affecting cartographic products, production processes, analytical capabilities, user participation, professional training, and the theoretical foundations of the discipline.