Maps and the Geospatial Revolution

Lesson 2 Lecture 2

Anthony C. Robinson, Ph.D

Lead Faculty for Online Geospatial Education

John A. Dutton e-Education Institute
Assistant Director, GeoVISTA Center
Department of Geography
The Pennsylvania State University
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Spatial Relationships

You need some ground rules to establish what is

possible when it comes to spatial relationships

Spatial Topology

The set of relationships that spatial features can

have with one another

Lets consider how people relate to each other in

space
Spatial Relationships
Equals
When we first met each
other, we felt like we were
one.

Touches
Our first kiss was gentle no
tongue.

Overlaps
During our honeymoon we
<deleted>

Contains
For 9 months the baby was
inside (and much quieter).
Spatial Relationships
Disjoint

Later on, we got sick of each

other and watched TV from
opposite sides of the room.

Covers
The dog sleeps on top of me,
creating a huge amount of heat.

Crosses
Although we both know how to
find our way home from the
grocery store, the only routing
point we have in common is our
driveway.
Spatial Relationships

What would happen if we ignored them?

Things like Mapquest and Google Maps would

never be able to do anything useful

For example

Consider 500 road segments that encompass

your neighborhood and nearby region
Scale
Two key concepts of scale are used in Geography

Map scale

Ratio of the distance on the map to the real distance on the

Earth

Large scale = 1/1000 Small scale = 1/10,000,000

Scale of analysis

The specific geographic context used to understand a

problem

Neighborhood, County, State, Country, Continent

What About Time?

Spatial Relationships and Scale are really

important, but what would they mean
without considering Time?

Almost everything Geographic involves a

dynamic process of one type or another

Maps often make it hard to see time as an

explicit factor
What About Time?
What About Time?
What About Time?

Part of the image is from 2012 from one sensor, and the other part is from
2013 from another sensor.
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Maps and the Geospatial Revolution www.coursera.org/course/maps

Twitter @MapRevolution

Online Geospatial Education @ Penn State www.pennstategis.com