summaries
P.C..]. van der Krogt - Seventeenth Century Dutch globes:
made for navigation or not?
This article discusses the hypothesis that in the beginning of
the seventeenth Century Dutch globes were made as naviga-
tional Instruments, as globemakers indicated on their globes
and in their manuals. But at the sarne time, we find serious
criticism concerning the usefulness of globes in maritime
navigation and we know that no Dutch ships other then East
Indiamen had a globe as pari of their Standard equipment.
Producing a globe required a substantial investment, an
amount of at least 500 guilders was calculated as necessary to
put a globe of approximately 1 foot in diameter on the mar
ket. We can conclude that a globemaker who wanted to make
a profit from his globes had to produce an edition of several
hundred pairs.
If we assume that each Dutch East Indiaman, which left for
the Indies between 1595 and 1603, had a globe pair on board,
then we are talking about only 89 terrestrial and 89 celestial
globes in six years, which would not represent a substantial
return for the three globemakers working in Amsterdam in
these years. The sale of globes to the shipping industry can-
not represent the most important reason for the large sums of
money globemakers invested in enlarging and improving their
assortment of globes. However, there is an indirect relation to
shipping. Since the globemakers insisted upon the importance
of globes for shipping, the general public quickly came to see
the globe as a symbol of shipping. For that reason, among
others, the globe became a desirable object for anyone con
nected with shipping.
The only real uses of globes were apart from navigation in
education, not restricted to navigational schools, and as a
reference tool. Nonetheless, the number of educational insti-
tutions was not large enough to support the production of
what in all probability amounted to thousands of globes.
The majority of the globes served as showpieces in libraries
and salons of the wealthy. An individual who owned a globe
pair showed that he was a person with universal interests. He
identified himself with scholars, but what was particularly
important for the Dutch, he also identified himself with
seafaring.
H.J. Schölten - Application of GeographicaI Information
Systems in the Netherlands
Geographical Information Systems GISprovide an enhanced
environment for analysis, evaluation and decision-making in
urban and regional planning. The emergence of new hardware
fmicro- and minicomputers) and Software Systems has en-
abled significant advances to be made in the storage, retriev-
al, processing and presentation of large amounts of
geographically-referenced data. However, as with other forms
of technical advance, a great deal of research and develop-
ment effort has had to be mobilised in order to exploit the
Potential which this technology has to offer.
In this article an overview is given of the developments of
GIS in the last 10 years. Attention is drawn to hardware and
Software, but also to organisational aspects. An important
part of the article is reserved for the applications in major
fields in the Netherlands.
J.A. Schilder - The provincial map of Flevoland
This article reviews the cartographic Situation in Flevoland in
1990 and pays attention to the establishment of the Bureau of
Cartography and Graphic Design as a new branch of the ad-
ministration of this Dutch Province.
An illustration is provided by the design and production of
the new provincial map of Flevoland at sca/e 1 125,000 (edi
tion 1990). A copy of this map is enclosed with this issue of
the Kartografisch Tijdschrift. The purpose of the map is to
transmit up-to-date and correct geographical Information on
Flevoland to users within and outside its boundaries. The
map image is composed of two cartographic layers, consisting
of a digitally produced small scale topographic base with ad-
ditional (thematic) cartographic information.
Finally, the author makes reference to future plans regarding
a complete provincial, cartographic and geographic informa
tion system for Flevoland.
R.J. van Essen and P. Boulerie - Vectorization and automatic
feature coding
In 1985 the OEEPE initiated a research program to inves-
tigate the remaining problems in the automatic digitizing of
cartographic objects. Phase I of the program consisted of a
study of the advantages and disadvantages of low-cost Scan
ners for cartographic purposes, and was followed by a series
of three questionnaires which determined procedures currently
used by European mapping organizations applying automatic
digitizing. From these studies a series of problems emerged
which can be grouped as problems with vectorizing and Prob
lems with automatic feature coding. These were the subjects
of phase II and III of its program which this article reviews.
Problems of loss and distortion of detail during the vectoriz
ing process and possibilities of automatic feature coding are
examined and some Solutions are proposed. Despite original
plans the two fields are not treated separately but instead are
seen as highly interrelated. The process of automatic digitiz
ing is subdivided into a sequence of procedural steps. At each
Step problems were identified and Solutions are suggested.
Also the information generated at every step is examined and
judged against its usefullness to automatic feature coding. It
is proposed that this bottom up process should be com-
plemented by a top down approach in which contextual infor-
KT 1990.XVI.4
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