https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2473-2666
The 31st International Cartographic Conference 2023 was held in Cape Town, South Africa 13-18 August. Selected papers submitted for the publishing route for the conference were considered for publication in this Special Issue of the International Journal of Cartography (IJC) to coincide with the conference. These papers were reviewed initially by the conference LOC and recommended papers were then again reviewed, as part of the normal Journal review process. This issue contains the papers that had undergone those reviews and selected to form part of this Special Issue.
The conference was organised by the South African National Committee for ICA. The theme of the conference was ‘Smart Cartography for Sustainable Development’. 845 delegates attended the conference, which included representation by 33 African countries.
As well as conference presentations and ICA Commission meetings and workshops, the conference hosted a number of technical tours, an Industry Exhibition, an International Map Exhibition (https://icc2023.org/index.php/international-map-exhibition/) and an exhibition of entries from the Children’s Map Competition (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/ccf8056030154dad96479390b3e5b62d/).
As with all ICA conferences, the bringing-together of researchers, academics, professionals, young scholars, industry representatives and members of sister societies results in focussed discipline presentations and discourse, which always generates future collaboration between members of ICA’s international community.
The paper Options for systematizing cartographic rules was provided by Václav Talhofer, Jiří Drozda and Filip Dohnal. This paper suggests a systematization of the rules that are used in the whole technological cycle of map creation. The suggested system of rules is processed into the design of a knowledge-based ontology database intended for solving especially collision situations during the creation of topographic maps
Otakar Čerba, Tomáš Andrš, Loic Fournier and Martin Vaněk contribute Cartography & Web3. This article addresses the relationship between cartography and Web3. It describes the basic features of Web3 and its future relationship to the field of cartography. The paper aims to generate discussion regarding the evolutionary changes in cartography that may occur due to the emergence of Web3 technologies such as Blockchain.
Square-glyphs: Assessing the readability of multidimensional spatial data visualized as square-glyphs is provided by Gianna Daniela Müller, Daria Hollenstein, Arzu Çöltekin and Susanne Bleisch. In this paper, the authors present a user study evaluating the readability and interpretability of the square-glyphs. They compare the user performance with squareglyphs containing two and four simultaneously mapped data dimensions and different value compositions.
The following paper is Understanding Relevance in Maps through the use of Knowledge Graphs by José Pablo Ceballos Cantú, Markus Jobst and Georg Gartner. The paper describes ‘SeMaptics’, a tool has been developed to better understand the relationship between the two domains of ontological and spatial dimensions. Ontological mapping allows for discrete ontologies to be projected into the spatial field. Such ontologies are regularly seen in a continuous or overlapping layered format in the spatial dimension. However, integrating both spaces results in a novel method, which could add additional perspectives to the map-making process. SeMaptics implements a graph structure to accommodate graph visualisations using D3js.
Visualising temporal changes in visitors' areas of interest using online geotagged photographs by Bochra Bettaieb and Yoshiki Wakabayashi provides details of a study undertaken to visualise the spatial patterns and temporal changes in the areas of interest (AOIs) of foreign visitors using data derived from geotagged photos on Flickr. The results show differences in the distribution of AOIs between visitors from Asia and Europe. Furthermore, the distribution of changed AOIs may reflect environmental changes due to a redevelopment project.
Behind the first Habsburg map of Transylvania – comparative analysis of contemporary manuscript maps by Zsombor Bartos-Elekes provides results from a study analysed, for the first time, three other contemporary manuscript maps: ‘Mappa della Transilvania’; ‘Continet mappas comitatuum’; and the map by Morando Visconti. The research was conducted to determine the relationship between the printed map and the manuscript maps, the map sources and if they were copies. They also wanted to determine the authors and the date of the manuscript maps.
Gertrud Schaab, Serena Coetzee, Nerhene Davis and Faith N. Karanja, in their paper Developing teaching/learning materials on ‘Sense of Place’ with students in an international university cooperation: overall approach and first phase outcomes at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences report on their project to jointly develop digital teaching and learning resources related to sense of place, which can be used in blended learning at several universities. This paper provides the results of the first phase of the project.
Spatial aspects of evacuation: A closer look at user interaction during route choice by Dajana Snopková and Lukáš Herman reports on one aspect of a larger project that dealt with the study of the influence of spatial parameters of buildings on decision-making during evacuation. They focussed on the analysis of the collected interaction data (mouse rotation) and their relationship to the laterality of the participants and the final choice of an evacuation corridor. Statistical analysis using correlation coefficients and the Welch t-test were employed in the study.
The paper by Haowen Yan, Weifang Yang and Xiaomin Lu: provided information on their research: Quantitative expressions of spatial similarity between road networks in multiscale map spaces. Using road networks as an example, the authors proposed an approach to calculating the spatial similarity degree between a road network at a larger scale and its generalised counterpart at a smaller scale. They argue that the proposed quantitative method lays a foundation for using spatial similarity as a constraint during map generalisation.
José Jesús Reyes Nunez provides a paper entitled: The presence of geoinformatics in Hungarian secondary education. The paper offers a brief background on the influence that geoinformatics currently exerts on geography teaching in Hungarian secondary schools: the main characteristics of geography teaching at elementary and secondary levels; skills and competences that should be developed by geography in this level; and how geoinformatics could assist further development. Finally, some ideas are proposed that might increase the presence of geoinformatics in the teaching of geography at the secondary level.
Orienteering maps, perhaps the least familiar map type to cartographers, are addressed in the paper History of orienteering maps: in the light of the evolution of survey and reproduction techniques by László Zentai. Map symbology, surveying methods and printing technologies employed in the development and production of orienteering maps are explained.
Atlassing Sustainable Development: A Participatory and Critical Approach to Neighbourhoods in Transition by Barbara Roosen and Mela Zuljevic paper discusses the production of an atlas as a critical and trans-disciplinary practice for participatory research in sustainable development. Starting from critical cartography and participatory mapping, the authors propose the process of ‘atlassing’ as a tool to support negotiation between various sustainability aspects in relation to everyday practices, different research inputs, actors and participatory activities.
The primary goal of the article by Nina Polous, Smart Cartography: representing complex geographical reality of 21st century, is to reflect on the term ‘Smart Cartography’. The author makes the term ‘cartography’, the focal point of the debate rather than the word ‘smart’. This paper simplifies the definition of cartography to the unexcludable ‘geographical reality,’ critical for understanding our environment. It examines how this term has been interpreted historically and contemporarily since the mid-19th century.
Krzysztof Pokonieczny and Wojciech Dawid provide the paper The Application of Artificial Neural Networks for the Generalisation of Military Passability Maps. Passability maps are cartographic studies that are generally used by commanders when planning military operations. This article presents a methodology for the automated generalisation of passability maps. For this purpose, artificial neural networks (ANN) were used, and, specifically, a multilayer perceptron. The paper describes the manner of preparing teaching data to train artificial neural networks and their implementation, which led to the creation of the resulting maps. In order to test the consistency of maps, Moran’s I spatial autocorrelation coefficient was determined.
Finally, a regular column in issues of this Journal - MAPS IN HISTORY by Imre Demhardt – focusses on: Cape Town's changing waterfront. Three maps – Plan of Cape Town (1854), South African Railways - Table Bay Harbour (1911) and Map of Cape Town (1948) – are used to ‘track’ the changes to the harbour.
We are pleased to provide this Special issue of the Journal as a means to convey some of the research and development activities reported by members of the International Cartographic Association’s international community in Cape Town, South Africa. This was a key event in the ICA calendar, and one that was a great professional and social success.
William Cartwright, Anne Ruas and Serena Coetzee
Melbourne | Paris | Pretoria
Obituary – Igor Drecki 1966–2023
Igor Drecki died at the age of 56 in a road accident that also claimed the life of his wife Iwona.
Igor was born in Rzeszów, in the south-east of Poland in 1966. From an early age, he specialised in the discipline that was to form a lifelong passion, studying cartography as a specialism for a Master’s degree in Geography at the University of Warsaw.
He joined the New Zealand Cartographic Society soon after he arrived in New Zealand in 1989 and since then he was an active member of the committee. Igor became a Life Member of NZCS in 2011 and was President of the Society from 2013 to 2018.
Igor was the ICA NZ liaison since 1999 and he represented New Zealand at the General Assembly at nearly every instance from then. He became the Editor of the ICA News in 2007 and with it, an ex-officio member of the ICA Publications Committee. His work with the ICA newsletter led to a Diploma for Outstanding Services to ICA awarded in 2017.
Igor had a prolific record in bringing ICA events to New Zealand, - the ICA Commission on Visualisation and Virtual Environments Meeting ‘Geovisualisation on the Web’ (2001), ICA Internet Cartography Seminar (2005), ICA Internet Cartography Workshop (Auckland), and ICA Regional Symposia on Cartography for Australasia and Oceania (2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016). He was also working on a comprehensive history of the ICA when he died and was chair of the Working Group on the History of ICA.
Igor’s coverage and engagement with cartography could therefore be described as pervasive and deep. He will be greatly missed by so many friends worldwide who he deeply affected with his kindness, approachability, energy, knowledge, professionalism and works.
Igor and Iwona are survived by their daughters, Natalia and Wanda, Igor’s parents Roman and Wandusia, Iwona’s mother Henryka and Igor’s brother, Jacek.
Antoni Moore, New Zealand Cartographic Society / University of Otago
Vale Igor Drecki