Cartography: A manufacturing industry concerned with the Processing,Transformation, Packaging and Transportation of Spatial Data

Abstract

The communication approach advocated by cartographers during the past decade appears to have provided direction but no route to improvement of the product. Much of the research in this area appears almost aimless and considerable danger is foreseen in that if a path is not quickly established and maintained the purpose of cartographic research will be lost behind ill conceived forays into 'no man's land'. The map is considered within this article as primarily a 'total product' and interdependence between its various elements seen as its strength. The current obsession with component parts detached from their operating environment appears to provide nothing of use to the manufacturer. This paper certainly is not presented as either a research or review article, but rather as a contemplative essay in which the above topics are examined and comparisons made between the cartographic and other manufacturing industries.