We all use navigation
for finding routes, but have you ever thought that how maps are made. A few
decades back, it was very difficult to make maps. The first maps were made by
hand or by painting on paper. It was very difficult to draw, exactly the same map
again and again. So, early maps varied in quality. The quality of the maps used
to be very low. The drawing of map used to take a lot of time and energy and
hence, there weren’t many maps produced.
After a few years, a special term ‘Cartographer’ was used. A cartographer is a person
who creates maps, whether they’re of the world, the local bus routes, or buried
pirate treasure. It comes to us from the Latin word charta-, which
means “tablet or leaf of paper,” and the Greek word graphein,
meaning to write or draw.
Over time, improvements in tools and technology helped
cartographers refine their skills and produce better maps. Some of
the tools, which helped the cartographers to produce high quality and accuracy
maps are:
Magnetic Compass:
A magnetic compass is a compass containing
a magnetic needle pivoted in a horizontal plane, which indicates the direction
of magnetic north at points on the earth's surface
Printers: The
printers helped the cartographers to print maps. Any number of maps, could be
printed with good quality using high-end printers.
Computers and
scanners: The computers and scanners allow the maps to be scanned and
uploaded on different servers. These maps could be easily seen by anyone, over
an internet connection. These maps are further used for navigation purpose also.
So, how these maps are scanned and made for use. The maps
are scanned using high-end scanners. The map is divided into different layers.
The most important is the base layer, on the top of which there is a layer for
each object. The objects refer to roads, rivers, houses etc. Then, a database
is created in a query language software which contains two spatial columns.
These spatial columns contain X and Y co-ordinates for a particular layer.
For example, if you are viewing the map of India, the base
layer would be the Indian map which would be in the background. On, the top of
the base layer you can turn on or off the other layers. Suppose, you want to
see the Indian map with only the roads, you can turn on just the base layer and
the road layer.
For navigation, the GPS (Global Positioning System) device
gets your location. With respect to your location, the map is downloaded. As you
move, you change your position and that position is sent in the form of
co-ordinates by the GPS.
This is how, the navigation system works.
This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
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