Geospatialization and Socialization of Cartographic Heritage

Abstract

The digital and geospatial technologies have changed the appearance, the media and the role of cartographic heritage. Once available only as real hardcopy maps, we transform it nowadays into diverse virtual forms and combine it with other data and information. The chapter shows how geodesy, cartography and librarianship were merged to bring the cartographic heritage closer to the users and education process. In the context of geolibrary, the paper presents several GIS, web and multimedia applications based on the cartographic heritage and geodetic data:

• the dynamic presentation of settlement growth produced as a time series of interchanging 3D historical maps populated with 3D buildings in the respective era;

• the 3D presentation of the WWI front line on the river Soča. Contemporary and old data on the Google Earth platform were used;

• the database of all Slovenian place names which have been automatically replicated in all six grammatic cases used in Slovenian language, so each name could be geoparsed;

• the pilot web-based application, which represents a virtual collection of geolocated contemporary and historical maps, postcards, portraits, ancient panoramic views and audio clips.

Finally, we discuss the applications and the potentials of cartographic heritage from the aspect of social media.