Design of Multimedia Mapping Products

Abstract

Conclusion p101 quoted: "Multimedia is a potentially poewerful tool for geographical representation. It enables a greater quantity of a more diverse range of media to be used to increase the potential for the communication of spatial information. It also enables an interactive, dynamic environment in which a user can explore, manipulate and transform spatial information. This ability to incorporate such a wide range of media into amap-based products can have a tendency to focus the cartographer's attention on issues other than map design. Map design still remains a primary means of spatial communication in a multimedia environment, particularlyin the multimedia map-based product environment discussed in this chapter. Despite the potential that interactive three-dimensional spatial environments, virtual worlds, and the more immersive environments of virtual reality offer for representing spatially definable content (Jacobson 1994; Koop 1995), it can be surmised that the two-dimensional map, whether in hard-copy or multimedia format, will remain a dominant means of spatial representation given its ability to provide a succinct summary of spatial patterns and relationships within a coverage. It is at the development of mutlimedia products whose primary content is the two-dimensional map that this chapter is aimed. This represents a sub-set of the ever increasing field of multimedia cartographic design."