The Pantelleria Island Map
View Pantelleria's Nature Trails and points of interest in a larger map
View Pantelleria's Nature Trails and points of interest in a larger map
1) The above Map, made by Google Maps tools, shows the points of touristic interest in the Island of Pantelleria, a popular holiday destination in Mediterranean Sea. The items visible as points represent locations both on the earth ground or the sea bottom, while lines show nature trails and trekking routes. Areas (polygons) indicate instead archeological sites and zones of interest.
The map is an example of application of Neogeography for common users. A wide range of useful activities can be advertised and made public in a presentable and almost professional way through web interactive applications such as google maps. In this case, the purpose was creating a map for a tourism discovery web site about the Island of Pantelleria (southern Italy).
Photos and Videos are easily linked to places, as it is possible to see in the placemarks 'Venus Lake', The 'Saltolavecchia Cliff' and the 'Amphores' Video.
The site is a site of relevant geological interest, being formed by a subsidence, submarine volcano located between African and European plate, constantly erupting every 5 to 10 thousands years.
The Venus Lake (see picture) is a endorheic Lake originated by the underground flow of rainwater through porous basalts.
The Island was home of several and different civilizations such as prehistoric tribes arrived from North Africa, then Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Spanish and Italians.
The map shows the locations and multimedia resources of sites of cultural and natural relevance.
2) Neogeography
Empowering people to create their own maps by advanced but simple tools, open the human beings a new world of communication and opportunities.
Satellite Imagery, GIS Vectorial data have been used to form a common platform for the development of individuals' ability of express spatial-related data or information.
Google Maps is a brilliant example, which uses the apparent simplicity of its tools as a factor of diffusion and its esthetic style to engage users on its usage and potentiality (the map above is an example).
Private users can now skip all the technical difficulties in creating valid maps, like those had by our predecessors in middle age, renaissance and also XXth century, while concentrating to what is for them most important: the human perception and information about places, geography and things themselves.
A big advantage is in fact given by reduction of technical issues such as the individuation of exact point not by the translation into a mathematical model of the planet in Latitude and Longitude (ie. UTM C. System), but simply by typing in the name of the place into the bar in characters, which is pure communication and a cultural action, rather than involving scientific knowledge.
The Volunteered Geographic Information provided by neogeography actors ,common users (Goodchild 2007), is able to enrich Geographic knowledge by involving those sectors of individuals who never dealed with the technical aspects into the expression of their information. If before geography was mostly composed by arguments involving anthropology, physical geography, and other sciences, today it involves information that comes directly from common users such as maps of tourism locations, businesses or pure personal experience. The geographic knowledge is not being impoverished by this less sophisticated information, because it still maintains a solid, scientific background (for example, the ellipsoid created for google earth allows people to point the exact location for a business and providing it with all the required information such as scientific and precise coordinates, adjacent roads/points of interest and administrative boundaries, but also detailed, high resolution Satellite Imagery.
This scientific and precise platform of new geography software allowed interoperability with other technology resources such as GPS or pictures and video.
Clearly, this is a great revolution, but there are some Negative effects:
First of all, it could be criticized because it augments the digital divide.
If we think deeply, digital divide is not only about having these software available, but also is amplified by the disproportional diffusion of public satellite imagery.
The fact that 10/15 countries in the world have the power to decide where and when satellite imagery should be collected and then made available to users, augment further these divisions.
There have been cases of users who could have discovered ruins of ancient buildings thanks to available high resolution imagery. This is possible only in areas/countries where these are available, and not in many countries such as Rwanda of Congo which will not have free archives of high resolution images, and, consequently, their citizen could not map precisely things or facts happened in their territory, even if they have a computer.
The disproportion is not only about technologies, but again influenced by richness and poverty of areas and societies making Digital Divide an exponential phenomena. Under this point of view humans are not all of them sensors, and we risk to lose the perception/"common user" geography of people of these areas. In that case the world's perception and people's expression is going to be amputated, showing only the perception of the riches and not considering at all those affected by the digital divide.
A pitfall of neogeography technologies and softwares is also their disproportion in precision regarding Datum and projection. Often, certain central/developed areas have a more precise correspondence between imagery and datum rather than world peripheral areas. Sometimes you can see satellite imagery shifted of hundred meters/kilometers from the platform of the ellipsoid of reference. This is because the use of a certain datums or projections will advantage in precision certain areas rather than others among the surface of the earth. This can be also considered a "divide", and can affect the ability of users to represent their maps/individuate a point by GPS and google maps.
Other times, mapping softwares and tools can simply have virtual holes and deficits in data or are not enabling to point or signal a particular location, for different reasons (especially Google Earth where DEMs and 3-D models influence the characteristics of surfaces).
Another Pitfall generated by these systems is that when they are used by major networks such as U.S. Post or couriers, they could also negatively affect certain procedures. One example is, when 10 years ago an address was slightly incorrect, for example when the address of the consignee is written 541 instead of 54/1 (on a road with less than 100 numbers), a postman was able to recognize and understand which was the reason of the mistake and adjust it manually.
Now, in a era when geographic location is mechanized, this is not possible anymore, and certain information or procedural intelligence has been lost because has not been considered by Neogeography software or its programming architecture, or even doesn't match and be recognized by pre-imposted functions.
On the other hand, the positive consequences and advantages brought by Neogeography are enormous. Apart from the already stated individual expression opportunities through geographical referenced photos, videos, business locations and activities, Neogeography tools open the window to an inmediate understanting of orientation through space for individuals.
The possibility for example to locate a Pizzeria, a Supermarket or a particular shop with reference to our temporary location allows huge time savings and orientation when conducting actions that before were easily letting us lost. If we consider the saving of time since when Google Maps and personalized GPS functions exist, probably it may be quantified in billions of dollars. Also, the advantages of Geo-Marketing and Advertisement through geographic platforms made this component a primary requirement for many businesses, where the difference of being "geo-present" on the web makes the difference between surviving or not.
Another Big advantage is the simultaneity of geographic knowledge. When we make a query to these systems the response and the available information is given instantaneously, while old maps required sometimes long periods of interpretation, which were making them unusably/discomfort for many purposes, especially business.
With no doubts, neogeography changed our lives and made possible communicating or having experience of what others discovered about/in remote places.
The map is an example of application of Neogeography for common users. A wide range of useful activities can be advertised and made public in a presentable and almost professional way through web interactive applications such as google maps. In this case, the purpose was creating a map for a tourism discovery web site about the Island of Pantelleria (southern Italy).
Photos and Videos are easily linked to places, as it is possible to see in the placemarks 'Venus Lake', The 'Saltolavecchia Cliff' and the 'Amphores' Video.
The site is a site of relevant geological interest, being formed by a subsidence, submarine volcano located between African and European plate, constantly erupting every 5 to 10 thousands years.
The Venus Lake (see picture) is a endorheic Lake originated by the underground flow of rainwater through porous basalts.
The Island was home of several and different civilizations such as prehistoric tribes arrived from North Africa, then Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Spanish and Italians.
The map shows the locations and multimedia resources of sites of cultural and natural relevance.
2) Neogeography
Empowering people to create their own maps by advanced but simple tools, open the human beings a new world of communication and opportunities.
Satellite Imagery, GIS Vectorial data have been used to form a common platform for the development of individuals' ability of express spatial-related data or information.
Google Maps is a brilliant example, which uses the apparent simplicity of its tools as a factor of diffusion and its esthetic style to engage users on its usage and potentiality (the map above is an example).
Private users can now skip all the technical difficulties in creating valid maps, like those had by our predecessors in middle age, renaissance and also XXth century, while concentrating to what is for them most important: the human perception and information about places, geography and things themselves.
A big advantage is in fact given by reduction of technical issues such as the individuation of exact point not by the translation into a mathematical model of the planet in Latitude and Longitude (ie. UTM C. System), but simply by typing in the name of the place into the bar in characters, which is pure communication and a cultural action, rather than involving scientific knowledge.
The Volunteered Geographic Information provided by neogeography actors ,common users (Goodchild 2007), is able to enrich Geographic knowledge by involving those sectors of individuals who never dealed with the technical aspects into the expression of their information. If before geography was mostly composed by arguments involving anthropology, physical geography, and other sciences, today it involves information that comes directly from common users such as maps of tourism locations, businesses or pure personal experience. The geographic knowledge is not being impoverished by this less sophisticated information, because it still maintains a solid, scientific background (for example, the ellipsoid created for google earth allows people to point the exact location for a business and providing it with all the required information such as scientific and precise coordinates, adjacent roads/points of interest and administrative boundaries, but also detailed, high resolution Satellite Imagery.
This scientific and precise platform of new geography software allowed interoperability with other technology resources such as GPS or pictures and video.
Clearly, this is a great revolution, but there are some Negative effects:
First of all, it could be criticized because it augments the digital divide.
If we think deeply, digital divide is not only about having these software available, but also is amplified by the disproportional diffusion of public satellite imagery.
The fact that 10/15 countries in the world have the power to decide where and when satellite imagery should be collected and then made available to users, augment further these divisions.
There have been cases of users who could have discovered ruins of ancient buildings thanks to available high resolution imagery. This is possible only in areas/countries where these are available, and not in many countries such as Rwanda of Congo which will not have free archives of high resolution images, and, consequently, their citizen could not map precisely things or facts happened in their territory, even if they have a computer.
The disproportion is not only about technologies, but again influenced by richness and poverty of areas and societies making Digital Divide an exponential phenomena. Under this point of view humans are not all of them sensors, and we risk to lose the perception/"common user" geography of people of these areas. In that case the world's perception and people's expression is going to be amputated, showing only the perception of the riches and not considering at all those affected by the digital divide.
A pitfall of neogeography technologies and softwares is also their disproportion in precision regarding Datum and projection. Often, certain central/developed areas have a more precise correspondence between imagery and datum rather than world peripheral areas. Sometimes you can see satellite imagery shifted of hundred meters/kilometers from the platform of the ellipsoid of reference. This is because the use of a certain datums or projections will advantage in precision certain areas rather than others among the surface of the earth. This can be also considered a "divide", and can affect the ability of users to represent their maps/individuate a point by GPS and google maps.
Other times, mapping softwares and tools can simply have virtual holes and deficits in data or are not enabling to point or signal a particular location, for different reasons (especially Google Earth where DEMs and 3-D models influence the characteristics of surfaces).
Another Pitfall generated by these systems is that when they are used by major networks such as U.S. Post or couriers, they could also negatively affect certain procedures. One example is, when 10 years ago an address was slightly incorrect, for example when the address of the consignee is written 541 instead of 54/1 (on a road with less than 100 numbers), a postman was able to recognize and understand which was the reason of the mistake and adjust it manually.
Now, in a era when geographic location is mechanized, this is not possible anymore, and certain information or procedural intelligence has been lost because has not been considered by Neogeography software or its programming architecture, or even doesn't match and be recognized by pre-imposted functions.
On the other hand, the positive consequences and advantages brought by Neogeography are enormous. Apart from the already stated individual expression opportunities through geographical referenced photos, videos, business locations and activities, Neogeography tools open the window to an inmediate understanting of orientation through space for individuals.
The possibility for example to locate a Pizzeria, a Supermarket or a particular shop with reference to our temporary location allows huge time savings and orientation when conducting actions that before were easily letting us lost. If we consider the saving of time since when Google Maps and personalized GPS functions exist, probably it may be quantified in billions of dollars. Also, the advantages of Geo-Marketing and Advertisement through geographic platforms made this component a primary requirement for many businesses, where the difference of being "geo-present" on the web makes the difference between surviving or not.
Another Big advantage is the simultaneity of geographic knowledge. When we make a query to these systems the response and the available information is given instantaneously, while old maps required sometimes long periods of interpretation, which were making them unusably/discomfort for many purposes, especially business.
With no doubts, neogeography changed our lives and made possible communicating or having experience of what others discovered about/in remote places.
