Why Cartographic Accuracy Still Matters | Geography Directions
▻http://blog.geographydirections.com/2010/11/19/why-cartographic-accuracy-still-matters
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A cartographic error that nearly started a war between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.DIGITIZATION of maps in recent years has radically altered how we interact with our world. Such formal atlases as The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World continue to provide high-quality, trusted reference charts for geographers and political scientists. But for millions of tourists, armchair geographers, and students, Google Earth, NASA’s World Wind, Skyline Globe and Microsoft’s Bing Maps provide an unrivaled global lens. Coupled with advances in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and satellite topographic imagery, digital map platforms serve in a wide range of applications. Rahul Rakshit and Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger (Clark University) highlighted the use of GIS ‘virtual earths’ in an October 2008 Geography Compass article. They are unequivocal in their analysis of virtual earth possibilities: ‘Since the release of Google Earth in 2005, virtual globes have become one of the hottest topics within the professional geographic community…Virtual globes provide a lot of new avenues for spatial education both for teachers and students’ (pp. 1995-1996). Similarly, another Geography Compass article, authored by Benjamin T Tuttle (University of Denver), Sharolyn Anderson (University of Denver), and Russell Huff (University of Colorado), reviewed virtual globes from a holistic perspective, suggesting a range of ‘technical advances, data availability, and end-user expectations’.
