Cartography

Depiction — More Than Mapping: A Quick Look

I downloaded and tried the new Depiction software last night. Billed as "More Than Mapping" the program is indeed just that. Within 10 minutes I was creating 'depictions' (visual graphics - including maps) for Berlin, Germany, San Francisco, California and London, UK.

Depiction allows you to create a map from existing data in CSV, GML or SHP formats. It can import elevation data and images as well.

The program links 'elements' like flooding, bridges, buildings, cars, routes, sensors and shapes and so on into a depiction window.

Several cartographic elements can be adjusted and placed.

The program can be seen as an integrator of web mashable data that can be combined and arranged into the depiction (map) that you wish.

Depiction will work for any place around the world and the ability to geo-reference information quickly is a nice feature.

The power of this program is quite interesting. Let's say you set up Depiction for an email account on Google, Yahoo or another server POP3 account.

I then send you an email that includes data. Depiction can read that email and plot that information as each email is received. Conversely, it can access WMS / WFS Services.

In an emergency, for example, many people could be sending mobile emails to an account, the data being forwarded automatically and then creating a Depiction.

There are thousands of interesting uses for this program. The key points, I think, are that it integrates lots of data across a network into on visual interface (Depictions). No one really needs to know technology to use this product. They only need to know what they want to display. That simplicity leads to efficiency for integrating real-time data from networks or sensors into one place for others to access and communicate.

It is logical that this program should be connected to any web server, data server or GIS server, for example. It integrates quickly and is designed to telecommunicate with others collaboratively.

It does import updated OpenStreetMap data and I was able to plan a route for San Francisco using it.

I understand it is available for half price for the next three days. Download it, try it out.

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