Dear All,

The reports on the latest 'high-end' GIS developments are interesting and I can't disagree with what is said.  However, I am concerned about what is not said, and what is not being done.  There doesn't seem to be much interest from the research & development community in practical "field" applications of their work.  Despite a number of curatorial archaeologists asking for a more systematic, contextual, hierarchical approach to visualisation / representation, the research people seem to be leaving it up to curators (who by the way are not computer specialists for the most part) to develop their own representations based on category attributes in databases.  That's fine except that we still need to have nationally consistent data exchange specifications to give to contractors for field names, data format, and display functions in our various GIS softwares. 

Both Bob Sydes and I asked about what EH was doing to make consistently digitised SAM polygons accessible.  EH have to date not felt able to share their problems with the wider community in this regard.  Discussion of variable scales of digital input for SAMs seems to me unacceptable in terms of MIDAS compliance, and marginal to wider issues of  innovative use of GIS to protect the heritage.    

I made pointed references to aerial digital imagery with DTMs and to area based data such as the Portable Antiquities.  Nobody has responded on this (the PA database is currently in a "development" phase), yet every local government archaeologist will be using these things in the next couple of years.  

I feel that a wider "user" oriented approach should be taken.  The research & development community are not the only ones who use GIS, and what may be easy for them to do with the latest hard and software may be impossible for others.  Curators hardly ever refer to BS or ISO standards.   What we need is a national standard, like the EH geophysics guidance document, that provides practical advice on digital data exchange, GIS table fields, levels of representation on SMRs (see below), etc.

For example, with regard to SAMs, I would expect a standard, publicly accessible mapping might portray just a symbol at the centre point of the SAM.  Clicking on the symbol would then bring up an individual monument table showing a polygon (or not as the case may be), with other required fields such as monument description and level of precision.  Within this monument table, there might be required fields for hot-links to other databases (Images of England) or just contact details for more info.  It is this kind of standardisation that allows the considerable complexity of information to be visualised hierarchically in an "emergent" way, and not just 'plastered' on in ever increasing, idiosyncratic and/or confusing layers.  This aspect has yet to be discussed in any detail by the conference.  

Cheers,
Neil