Martyn Jessop, Kings College London'

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Martyn Jessop, Kings College London. Email
martyn.jessop_at_kcl.ac.uk
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The Project

• Project Description
• Budget 5000.
• Pilot project establish approaches, techniques
  and novel solutions.
• One of a group of spatial data projects within
  the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH).
• Did not involve GIS specialists.

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Location of Kastoria
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Dividing Time
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Sources and Products
Digital Resource for General Use
Geographical Information System
Legacy Database
Maps
Web Site
Paper Maps
Archive Documents
Existing Multimedia Presentation
Old Photos
GIS for use by academics at museum
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Presentation of Maps on the Web

• Static image files.
• Image Library software.
• Limited Interactivity (Image Maps, Java).
• Animated sequences of maps.
• Medium Interactivity (Geotools)
• Fully Interactive GIS
• Whats used in the project?

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The aims of the GIS

• Preserve the database and open it to a wider
  audience via the web.
• Produce maps for the website.
• Desktop GIS for academics (MapInfo) - move from
  map drawing to analysis.
• - visualisation tool.

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Data Flow Through the Project
Location Data (Paper Maps)
On Screen Digitisation Mapinfo Map Drawing
Desktop A4 Size Scanner (produces image files)
Static Maps
Image Maps
Attribute Data (legacy database)
Animations (Javascript)
Microsoft Excel (Pre-processing and further data
generation)
Future Simple Web-based GIS??
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Spatial and Attribute Data
120 Villages. 50 Data items per village. 6000
items.
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Additional Geographic Data
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Maps from GIS

• Summaries of data population etc. Example
• Location of events exchanges, violence, etc.
  Example
• Data access. Example
• Exploratory.

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Exploratory Maps
Animation Example
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What happened 1900-1905?
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Experiences of the Project

• Views and aims changed substantially during
  project
• There are novel solutions to cartographic
  problems utilising the Web.
• Even simple maps are (very) useful.
• Levels of expertise/experience required
• Cost need not be high.
• Expect to digitize.
• Use multi-application approach

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Experiences of the project (II)

• Must keep data well organised.
• Tyranny of the Web site keep to project
  objectives.
• Keep notes about processes and progress.
• Its about people not phenomena.

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GIS in the Humanities

• Designed by scientists for scientists -
  philosophy is fundamentally different.
• Can GIS link human agency to change?
• Problems with generalisation and uncertainty.
• Is it worth it?
• Whats next - web based toolkit (open souce)
• - wider role for CCH?