A new interactive gazetteer of Perczel’s globe

As a result of the Perczel Project outlined by Mátyás Márton in 2007 at the Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), the complete digital restoration and then reconstruction of the 127.5 cm diameter manuscript globe was completed in 2019. The final cartographic completion of the ongoing task at the department by 2013 – led by Mátyás Márton, the project manager, who carried out this work with the help of Judit Paksi –, which included the work of many lecturers and students, aimed at saving the globe.Using this augmented digital processing, it was also possible to create three artistic copies of Perczel’s globe, which was originally made in 1862. This unique work of art, which has suffered irreparable damage due to the ordeals of the 20th century, is of great cultural value and also very important for our cartographic heritage, has been reborn.Following the digital reconstruction, there was a good opportunity to revive another related project. The website, “The interactive gazetteer of Perczel’s globe”, which was born as a result of the work of Zsuzsanna Ungvári and Tibor Tokai earlier, was also created with a new, expanded content. The present study presents the antecedents of gazetteer creation and describes the most important steps of current processing.

Developing a valuation method for digital objects of cartographic heritage

The paper deals with the method of value assessment for objects of digital cartographic heritage. The method is based on the system of the original cartographic object transformation into various analog or digital forms and formats. The formula linking the assessment of digital cartographic objects with the evaluation of the original one, as well as its analog copies, is presented. The method involves а variety of evaluation criteria

Description of Cartographic Heritage in Europeana Data Model

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Europeana is a portal that provides access to millions of objects from all kinds of cultural heritage communities. It enables users to find digital cultural works made available by cultural institutions throughout the European Union. Currently, Europeana provides access to a collection of more than 50 million books, periodicals, video clips, maps, photographs and digital documents from libraries, archives, museums and audio-visual archives in Europe. To facilitate Europeana’s participation in the Semantic Web Europeana Data Model (EDM) has been developed. The idea of EDM is to constitute a framework for collecting, connecting and enriching metadata. It is a theoretical data model that allows data to be presented in different ways according to the practices of the various domains that contribute data to Europeana. EDM brings more meaningful links to Europe’s cultural heritage data. Data from partners or external information resources with references to persons, places, subjects, etc., will connect to other initiatives and institutions. This will result in sharing enriched content, adding to it and thereby generating more content in ways that no single provider could achieve alone.</p><p>Presented research is the continuation of authors earlier study. In previous research, authors have proposed to integrate EDM structured information with geographic information system for movable heritage providing the semantic relations of movable heritage to the geographical space. This was a step into mixing GIS and Europeana world with the use of semantic contextualization for the object representations. Current research is the next step in this study and is going towards development of the new areas of EDM implementation – in cartographic heritage description.</p>

GeoDataHub: Building centralised repository of authoritative cartographic and geospatial resources

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> GeoDataHub (geodatahub.library.auckland.ac.nz) is an authoritative national repository of cartographic and geospatial resources curated by the University of Auckland Library for research, government, and educational communities, as well as the public of New Zealand. Its objectives are to digitise cartographic materials, provide integrated and enhanced data access, and build a unique knowledge base concerning New Zealand’s cartographic heritage. GeoDataHub showcases conceptual developments in cartography, surveying, photogrammetry, and other mapping, earth, and social science disciplines, highlighting their contribution to the development of the nation. It supports a dynamic, innovative, and leading edge historical and GIScience research, facilitating scientific discovery and knowledge building.</p><p> The repository contains digitised maps and charts published by authoritative agencies and research institutes, aerial photography provided by local authorities and all of government satellite imagery. A selection of key geospatial datasets produced by the government, Crown research institutes and local authorities augment the repository – currently over 30TB of data. The focus of GeoDataHub is on providing cartographic and geospatial resources for New Zealand, its offshore islands and territories; South Pacific, particularly Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau; and Ross Dependency in Antarctica. Regional coverage primarily includes Auckland and Waikato, and parts of Northland, Bay of Plenty and East Cape. Local datasets cover primarily Auckland Region but a selection of datasets from other regions is also included. GeoDataHub is augmented by physical collection of maps and charts, atlases, aerial photographs, gazetteers, map indexes and catalogues, and cartographic paraphernalia, located in the Map Room of the University of Auckland Library.</p><p> This paper talks about challenges associated with the design, implementation and provision of content for GeoDataHub. Apart from building an integrated and enhanced data access application, facilitating textual, spatial and temporal search, metadata harvesting and discovery utilising GeoNetwork, a catalogue application that manages spatially referenced resources (www.geonetwork-opensource.org), the repository provides a further two ways of accessing cartographic and geospatial resources. One involves browsing the selected content of the repository, examining and downloading the material of interest; the other allows users to ‘map a drive’ and access all materials using familiar folder structure (the latter applies to the University community of users only). This approach however, occasionally requires provision of the same datasets in two different formats (compressed and uncompressed) depending how the users are accessing them. In addition, a knowledge base concerning New Zealand cartographic heritage is being implemented, providing a useful guide to authoritative mapping served by GeoDataHub. A particular challenge concerns documenting their provenance, content, extent and general characteristics in a modular fasion.</p><p> The paper concludes with presenting plans for extending GeoDataHub. This includes not only the creation of further geospatial records, provision of more content and expanding the knowledge base, but also strategic decisions concerning the selection of cartographic and geospatial resources and how to provide the best service possible to our growing user base.</p>

Ptolemy's Britain and Ireland: A New Digital Reconstruction

In this paper, we expand application of our mathematical methods for translating ancient coordinates from the classical Geography by Claudius Ptolemy into modern coordinates from India and Arabia to Britain and Ireland, historically important islands on the periphery of the ancient Roman Empire. The methods include triangulation and flocking with subsequent Bayesian correction. The results of our work can be conveniently visualized in modern GIS tools, such as ArcGIS, QGIS, and Google Earth. The enhancements we have made include a novel technique for handling tentatively identified points. We compare the precision of reconstruction achieved for Ptolemy's Britain and Ireland with the precisions that we had computed earlier for his India before the Ganges and three provinces of Arabia. We also provide improved validation and comparison amongst the methods applied. We compare our results with the prior work, while utilizing knowledge from such important ancient sources as the Antonine Itinerary, Tabula Peutingeriana, and the Ravenna Cosmography. The new digital reconstruction of Claudius Ptolemy's Britain and Ireland presented in this paper, along with the accompanying linguistic analysis of ancient toponyms, contributes to improvement of understanding of our cultural cartographic heritage by making it easier to study the ancient world using the popular and accessible GIS programs.

Open Access to Historical Information for Landscape Analysis in an SDI Framework

The paper illustrates the potentials of geospatial data to access a historical digital atlas for landscape analysis and territorial government. The experience of a historical geo-portal, the “Atl@nte dei Catasti Storici,” in the management of geo-referenced and non-geo-referenced maps—ancient cadastral and topographic maps of the Lombardy Region—can be considered a case study with common aspects to many European regions with an extensive cartographic heritage. The development of downstream Web-based services enables integration with other data sources (current maps, satellite and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle [UAV] airborne photogrammetry, and multi-spectral images and derived products). This provides new scenarios for retrieving geospatial knowledge in support of more sustainable management and governance of the territory.