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Articles

1978: Vol. LV, No. 1

Developments in Digitising and Voice Recognition to Meet the Requirements of Hydrography and Cartography

Submitted
August 7, 2015
Published
2015-07-09

Abstract

Some 15 years have elapsed since the first theories regarding automated cartography were put forward and experiments begun in both universities and survey establishments. At this time the equipment used had been primarily designed for use in mechanical engineering in the manufacturing industry. The requirement to handle the large amounts of non-geometric data in hydrographic and cartographic applications has played a large part in the design of digitisers and plotters as they appear today. This paper will indicate how some of the techniques and facilities have been evolved and are now used, with particular reference to their application in hydrographic chart compilation. Traditionally, the hydrographic chart compiler takes information from a number of sources : existing charts; data from survey ships, commercial services and harbour authorities; charts from foreign sources; and listings of wrecks and buoys. This information is collated and compiled into an accurate, but not fair drawn, sheet from which the published chart is ultimately produced by highly skilled cartographic draughtsmen. When automated techniques are applied, the process tends to be split into three distinct operations : 1) Data entry — generally by the use of digitisers. 2) Computing and editing. 3) Plotting, or automated draughting.