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Centuries-Old Maps From David Rumsey Map Collection Come Alive With New Internet GIS Browser
New Mapping and Image Visualization Service Adds 20th Century Data and GIS Tools to One of the Largest Private Historical Map Collections in U.S.
San Francisco, CA - Visualizing historical change by way of 19th and early 20th century maps and modern age aerial photos, satellite imagery and other raster-based data, is now a freely accessible web browser-based experience and part of the award-winning David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (www.davidrumsey.com), an Internet site featuring over 6,500 high-resolution digital images from one of the largest private map collections in the U. S.
First of its kind, the new Rumsey Internet GIS mapping service enables web browser interaction and visualization of 11 different historical maps of San Francisco Bay, from the mid-1800's thru early-1900's, along with digital orthophotos, topographic map sheets, digital elevation models, and satellite imagery from the U. S. Geological Survey. Roads, lakes, parks, and state boundary data are also part of the service. The site will soon include historical maps of New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., and ultimately, regions, states and continents.
"Placing historical maps on the Internet allows many more people to appreciate them," said Rumsey, president of Cartography Associates (San Francisco, CA). "GIS brings these historical maps into a common, visual language so that we can better understand the context of our history. Integrating geospatial data allows GIS professionals, cartographers and anyone who loves maps and history, to further investigate and visualize historical change."
Rumsey's collection of 150,000 physical maps is considered one of the largest private collections in the U.S. The distinguished online collection has been recognized as Yahoo's Pick of the Week, Best of the Net from About.com, Site of the Day from USA Today, and Editor's Choice from Netscape, Lycos, AOL and other search engines, and featured in Wired magazine, Mercator's World magazine, and on TechTV. Rumsey also earned a First Prize at the Map Gallery during the ESRI 2001 Conference, for his integration of historical maps and GIS.
The historical San Francisco maps were digitized with a high-resolution digital camera stabilized to eliminate vibration. The TIFF files were imported and rectified with ArcGIS products (ESRI, Inc., Redlands, CA), compressed using MrSID technology (LizardTech, Inc., Seattle, WA), then incorporated into the new Internet GIS service.
The new GIS feature for Rumsey's online collection is provided by Maplicity, the ground breaking Internet GIS and image visualization software from Telemorphic, Inc. (Berkeley, CA) that provides visitors with robust display and analysis capabilities within a scalable web browser interface. People of all skill levels will move easily through a series of interactive visualization processes to blend/fade/merge and overlay/swipe multiple image layers, as well as create, save, and print their own custom image products and maps.
GIS and mapping professionals will appreciate the quick and easy navigation to a specific location of interest, and the ability to customize and download new image products, complete with the georeferencing information (world files), and integrate them into leading desktop GIS and mapping packages.
"The new Maplicity GIS browser on Rumsey's site is designed for fast, simple visualization and manipulation of the historical maps and any other geospatial data such as satellite imagery, topographic maps, or detailed street information," said Todd Helt, president of Telemorphic, Inc. "A web browser-based application (or applet) has the potential to connect many new people to the capabilities of GIS and image analysis, by delivering the essential software tools along with the data content, in a seamless web service."
Maplicity is built with 100% pure Java 2 technology from Sun Microsystems (Palo Alto, CA) to provide unparalleled interactivity, cross-platform compatibility and security for web browser-based users. Telemorphic engineered the product to seamlessly integrate and leverage capabilities of industry leading ArcIMS Internet GIS server software (ESRI, Inc. Redlands, CA).
Because the application is built with pure Java, online access is available through a wide variety of industry standard web browsers and operating systems (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and AOL browsers running on Windows, Unix, Linux, and Mac OSX operating systems). Lightspeed Technologies, Inc. (Bakersfield, CA) provides the ArcIMS Internet GIS hosting services for the collection.
An 1852 Britton & Rey map (1:18,100 scale) of San Francisco Bay (upper left)
is shown with a 1926 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map at 1:40,000 (lower
right), 1980's digital raster graphic data (upper right), and a 1998 digital
orthophoto (lower left). The QuadView feature of David Rumsey's Internet GIS
service allows people to combine several different maps in one view for easy
visualization of geographical changes over time. Image Copyright (C) Cartography Associates.
For more information about the new Internet GIS browser for the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, please visit www.davidrumsey.com.
About the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
The David Rumsey Collection (http://www.davidrumsey.com) is a compilation of scanned maps focused on18th and 19th century North and South American cartographic materials, but also has rich coverage of the entire world. The collection includes atlases, globes, school geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps including pocket, wall, children's and manuscript maps. The online collection is an expanding cross section of images designed to highlight the depth and breadth of the collection. The online collection is an expanding cross section of images designed to highlight the depth and breadth of the physical collection, which numbers over 150,000 maps. Over 6,500 historical maps have been scanned and are now freely available through Rumsey's Web site. The digital images and associated descriptive data are © copyright Cartography Associates.
About Cartography Associates, Inc.
Cartography Associates, founded in 1996, promotes the distribution of digital facsimiles both in print and electronic media. Specializing in both primary source documents and cutting-edge technology, Cartography Associates is committed to developing tools that integrate cataloging with visual images on the Internet. CA's vision is to offer users the best of both worlds: the powerful searching, access, and user functionality made possible by technology, combined with the visual beauty, technical mastery and intellectual richness of original source materials.
About Telemorphic, Inc.
A leading innovator in web-based mapping products and services, Telemorphic, Inc., leverages rapidly converging communications and computing technologies (C3T) to improve functionality, reduce costs and add value for its customers. For more information, visit www.telemorphic.com. Maplicity is a trademark of Telemorphic, Inc.
All other brands and trademarks are the properties of their respective owners
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