4.0089 Software: Kinko's; MapMaking (129)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Mon, 21 May 90 17:43:31 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0089. Monday, 21 May 1990.


(1) Date: Fri, 18 May 90 06:10:57 PDT (63 lines)
From: "[DCGQAL]MILLER16" <XB.DAS@STANFORD.BITNET>
Resent by: Patrick W. Conner <U47C2@WVNVM>
Subject: Kinko's Software [eds]

(2) Date: Sun, 20 May 90 11:55 EST (66 lines)
From: <J_CERNY@UNHH>
Subject: Thematic mapping for the Macintosh.

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 May 90 06:10:57 PDT
From: "[DCGQAL]MILLER16" <XB.DAS@STANFORD.BITNET>
Subject: [DCGQAL]MILLER16!Courseware Exchange Program

Comments-of: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM>

Someone asked about Kinko's Software, and what happend to it.
I received the following announcement from my Apple representative
just the next day after I'd deleted that request.

> Original Mail From <
"[DCGQAL]MILLER16" <XB.DAS@STANFORD.BITNET>
[... eds]

----------------------------------------------------------------
APPLE ANNOUNCES INTERIM ACADEMIC COURSEWARE EXCHANGE DISTRIBUTOR
----------------------------------------------------------------

CUPERTINO, California--February 26, 1990--Apple Computer, Inc. announced
today that Intellimation of Santa Barbara, California will provide
Academic Courseware Exchange service on an interim basis to colleges and
universities while final arrangements for an expanded program are being
completed.

Apple and Kinko's Copies announced last July their intention to replace
the Academic Courseware Exchange program administered by Kinko's with
more sophisticated software distribution, publishing and marketing. The
Academic Courseware Exchange was originally established in 1986 by Apple
and Kinko's to make software created by college faculty easily available
to other faculty members and students at a reasonable cost.

"During the past five years, curriculum software development has
flourished well beyond our early expectations - in part because of the
introduction of HyperCard software and other easy-to use Macintosh
development tools as well as the growing interest in multimedia
technologies," said Apple academic solutions manager Katie Povejsil.

During this interim period, Academic Courseware materials may be
obtained by calling 1-800-346-8355. Intellimation will also take
inquiries from software developers interested in distributing materials
through the Academic Courseware Exchange for the program's eventual
administrator.

Intellimation was founded in 1987 as a subsidiary to ABC-CLIO, a
37-year-old educational publisher. The company publishes and
distributes multimedia materials and is best- known as marketer and
distributor of The Annenberg/CPB Collection of video courses such as The
Brain and The Mechanical Universe.

Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh and HyperCard are registered trademarks
of Apple Computer, Inc.

Contacts:

Janet Male
Regis McKenna, Inc.
415-354-4427 or 408-974-4173

Becky Snyder
Intellimation
805-968-2291

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------71----
Date: Sun, 20 May 90 11:55 EST
From: <J_CERNY@UNHH>
Subject: Thematic mapping for the Macintosh.

I have only given partial attention to the postings on mapping software,
so I hope this does not repeat what has been covered. This is to partly
address the original question and to include some observations that may
be useful to others.

This semester I taught a seminar in which we looked at the possibilities
of making a thematic atlas using Macintosh desktop publishing hardware
and software. (Even though I have used many kinds of computers for many
years, and know how time-intensive these "labor saving" systems can be,
I still GREATLY underestimated how much time it would take to produce a
finished map, from data collection to final tweaking.) We did not buy
any new software, but used the software the Geography Department already
had licensed and which I had already used to varying degress. We had a
Mac SE/30 and Mac II as our machines with ouput to Imagewriter II (for
drafts) and Applie LaserWriter.

The primary program we used was "MapMaker 4.0" by Select Micro Systems
(tel. 408-985-7400). This allows you to make:

* choropleths ("shading-by-area")
* dot maps
* propoertional point symbols (squares or circles)
* cartograms (non-contiguous or "exploded" type)

It comes with base map files for USA by states, each USA state by
counties, and world by countries. You can order other areas or prepare
your own base map files. It supports some digitizers, but not the
particular Summagraphics model we had. To prepare our own bases we
scanned a printed base map (Microtek scanner), then imported that to a
general-purpose drawing program (SuperPaint) to retrace the outlines,
then imported that to MapMaker for its own "autotracing." MapMaker lets
you import Excel spreadsheets, so you can manage your data there.

MapMaker is good as far as it goes and I don't know of another program
that makes the same range of maps. Version 4.0 has substantial
improvements over version 3.0. However, use it to make the maps and
THEN move the maps to SuperPaint (or whatever) for annotation.
MapMaker, naturally, is not as full-featured as those for adding text
etc., and it is also substantially slower to redraw the screen (even on
an SE/30 it got very slow as map complexity increased). Most annoying,
and which I've suggested to them that they address in the next release,
is the lack of a style-sheet or scripting option so the new map defaults
to YOUR favored shading patterns (the default set is awful) and other
display options. Overall, I'd say that MapMaker is capable of producing
maps for a use or publication that is not too demanding, but lacks
features (such as a a really good set of gray scale shades) I think many
experienced cartographers would want to have to be satisfied.

Both Mac and PC DOS users should be aware of RockWare Inc. (tel.
303-423-5645). As the name suggests, they emphasize software for
geologic applications. I suspect they develop most programs in the DOS
environment and then port them to the Mac. That is certainly true for
MacGRIDZO for isarithmic (contour) mapping, which includes an impressive
number of options, but lacks the usual Mac look-and-feel.

Finally, I recently received demo disks from WTC Scientific in the UK
(tel. 0625-20210) for WhizSurf, WhizMap, and Atlas, but have not tested
them much. WhizMap looks like an alternative to MacGRIDZO.

Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services and Geography
Department, University of New Hampshire. j_cerny@unhh