Toolkit development in a multi-model cartographic production environment

Abstract

Developments in digital data processing have considerably increased the flexibility with which spatial data can be used. One of the key advances is that information flow has become possible not only from an isolated set of source data to the end product, but also through a succession of related data instances (or ‘models’), representing nodes in a larger production system. This way, the same piece of source data can be converted into a wide range of different products and product types at a high rate of automation – provided that tools exist for efficiently controlling the various production processes. This article describes an approach for structured tool design in a production system consisting of several cartographic models. It also provides an outline of the key tasks in this production framework and, in an exemplary application, shows how new production lines can be implemented by using model-specific parameters. In conclusion, a summary of practicalities is presented for setting up a system that follows the described approach.

Keywords:

• GIS cartography
• cartographic models
• tool development
• parameterisation