Alan MacEachren: Mapping

Alan MacEachren is American geographer. Explore interesting quotes on mapping.
Alan MacEachren: 46   quotes 0   likes

“Maps have been a successful form of representation for centuries by making the world understandable through systematic abstraction that retains the iconicity of space depicting space. Advances in methods and technologies are blurring the lines among maps and other forms of visual representation and pushing the bounds of “map” as a concept toward both more realistic and more abstract depiction. As a result, there are a variety of unanswered questions about the attributes and implications of “maps.””

Alan MacEachren

Source: Research challenges in geovisualization (2001), p. 6-7

World , Understanding , Question , Success

“Maps, due to their melding of scientific and artistic approaches, always involve complex interaction between the denotative and the connotative meanings of signs they contain.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 337

“A new view of the role of art and science in cartography is clearly needed. It is probably a mistake to view maps as objects that contain varied amounts of scientific or artistic content for which we must determine an appropriate balance (as both Keates, 1984, and Robinson, 1952, seem to, with Keates arguing for more art and Robinson for more science). Instead, it makes more sense to consider complementary artistic and scientific approaches to studying and improving maps, both of which can be applied to any given cartographic problem. The artistic approach is intuitive and holistic, achieving improvements through experience supplemented by critical examination (where critical examination implies expert appraisal of the results of our cartographic decision-making efforts). It draws on science in using perspective, understanding of human vision, color theory, and so on.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 9

Art , Color , Understanding , Problem

“Two developments of the past four decades played crucial roles in establishing a research agenda for the study of map symbolization and design. The first was Arthur H. Robinson's dissertation (published as The Look of Maps in 1952), with its call for objective research, and the second was the adoption in the 1970s of a paradigm of cartography as communication science.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 2

Communication , Study , Science , Past

“The representational nature of maps, however, is often ignored – what we see when looking at a map is not the word, but an abstract representation that we find convenient to use in place of the world. When we build these abstract representations we are not revealing knowledge as much as are creating it.”

Alan MacEachren

(2004), p. v
How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995)

World , Nature , Knowledge

“To make maps that work, we must depict categories using methods that match the structures of human mental categorization.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 152. As cited in: V.P. Filippakopoulou et al. (2002)

“Understanding how maps work and why maps work (or do not work) as representations in their own right and as prompts to further representations, and what it means for a map to work, are critical issues as we embark on a visual information age.”

Alan MacEachren

(2004), p. v
How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995)

Age , Understanding

“The fact that map is a fuzzy and radial, rather than a precisely defined, category is important because what a viewer interprets a display to be will influence her expectations about the display and how she interacts with it.”

Alan MacEachren

A.M. MacEachren (2004). How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design, The Guilford Press. p. 161

“Cartography is about representation. This statement may seem obvious, but it has been overlooked in our search for organizing principles for the field. Rather than restricting research in cartography to maps that present well-defined messages (and suggesting a single, map-engineering approach to improving the transmission of these messages, as the communication approach did), attention to maps as spatial representation expands the field.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 1

Search , Communication

“It may be that the human brain not only perceives but stores the essentials of a visual scene using the same geometrical, quasi-symbolic, minimalist vocabulary found in maps.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 171

“Without categorization, maps would not be possible.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 151. As cited in: V.P. Filippakopoulou et al. (2002) " Exploring Children’s Ability to Categorize and Symbolize http://users.ntua.gr/bnakos/Data/Section%205-6/Pub_5-6-37.pdf". In: Cartografia para Escolares no Brazil. Belo Horizonte

“Robinson (1952) pointed out some limits to approaching map symbolization and design from a purely artistic viewpoint, as he suggested was the guiding perspective at the time. Maps, like buildings that are designed primarily for artistic impact, are often not functional… Robinson (1952) argued that treating maps as art can lead to "arbitrary and capricious" decisions. He saw only two alternatives: either standardize everything so that no confusion can result about the meaning of symbols, or study and analyze characteristics of perception as they apply to maps so that symbolization and design decisions can be based on "objective" rules… Robinson's dissertation, then, signaled the beginning of a more objective approach to map symbolization and design based on testing the effectiveness of alternatives, an approach that followed the positivist model of physical science. In his dissertation, Robinson cited several aspects of cartographic method for which he felt more objective guidelines were required (e. g., lettering, color, and map design). He also suggested that this objective look at cartographic methods should begin by considering the limitations of human perception. One goal he proposed was identification of the "least practical differences" in map symbols”

Alan MacEachren

e.g., the smallest difference in lettering size that would be noticeable to most readers
Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 2-3

Art , Color , Decision , Study

“Exploring maps as representation forges important links between cartography and a variety of cognate fields concerned with this topic in its various facets (including geographical information systems [GIs] and remote sensing, as well as art, cognitive science, sociology, cognitive and environmental psychology, semiotics, and even the history and philosophy of science).”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 1

Art , History , Sense , Science

“The nature of maps and of their use in science and society is in the midst of remarkable change - change that is stimulated by a combination of new scientific and societal needs for geo-referenced information and rapidly evolving technologies that can provide that information in innovative ways. A key issue at the heart of this change is the concept of "visualization."”

Alan MacEachren

Source: Exploratory cartographic visualization: advancing the agenda (1997), p. 1

Way , Nature , Science , Change

“Cartography as a discipline has a significant stake in the evolving role of maps within systems for scientific visualization, within spatial decision support systems, within hypermedia information access systems, and within virtual reality environments.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: Exploratory cartographic visualization: advancing the agenda (1997), p. 1

Support , Reality , Decision

“Treating cartography as a formal communication system implies that we can improve map communication if we can reduce the filtering or loss of information at various points in the system where in the system should have a positive effect, and an information loss should be impossible to overcome. Most efforts to study cartographic communication have been directed to the middle stages in the system: the cartographer's transformation of selected information into the map and the initial extraction of information from the map by the user.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 5

Communication , Effort , Study , Loss

“When visualization tools act as a catalyst to early visual thinking about a relatively unexplored problem, neither the semantics nor the pragmatics of map signs is a dominant factor. On the other hand, syntactics (or how the sign-vehicles, through variation in the visual variables used to construct them, relate logically to one another) are of critical importance.”

Alan MacEachren

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 368

Problem , Thinking