VIRTUAL TERRAIN ENVIRONMENT: a New Annotation for Maps and the Cartography

摘要

1. A kind of immerseable map Under the condition of the digital mapping and the network, especially the broadband , a kind of 3-D, dynamic map supported by the Virtual Reality technology is gradually coming into the practical phase. From the technical viewpoint, we may call it a virtual enviroment, a terrain simulation, or a cyberspace. But from the cartographical viewpoint, it is a new kind of immerseable map. In history, cartographic scholars paid much attention to 3-D representation of the terrains on the maps and never intermitted. From the Mawangdui map(about 200 B.C) to Imhof hillshading, and even to Chen Shupeng's landscape presentation, they attain a lofty realm of art. In practice, we have to do some auxiliary work such as the quantitative description of the planar map, making the sandtable and city models to intersify the spatial sense of user. So, when the technology of computer achieve a certain level, configurating a new model of reality―virtual environment will be a fair and reasonable extension of maps and cartography. We started our experimental work in the beginning of nineties last century, for the purpose of cooperating with the application of digital maps, namely, geographical spatial databases.