Dear All,
I think there is general concensus in favour of standard GIS icons / "symbologies" [ugh], but one shouldn't under-estimate the problems with software and hardware transliterations. Each of our printers in the office reproduce symbols differently even though they're mapped the same on the screen. And different monitors show the same thing differently on their screens. Then of course there is the usual problem of the GIS software itself. GIS standardisation is an issue whichn will need to be takled internationally, as Dr Southall notes.
With respect to Pete Iles summary, I would suggest that many SMRs still need to spend a significant amount of time checking "primary" records, rather than computerised records, to deal with development control work. Some of us don't have enough GIS "layers" or linkages to digitised information to conduct 95 percent of searches by computer. And are there any national or international schema / indexing systems to guide us in setting up standardised layer sequences or linkages, or what those layers should contain in terms of content and symbol ??
Cheers,
Neil
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