AUTOMATED DATA CAPTURE FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION-SYSTEMS - A COMMENTARY

This commentary attempts to briefly review the state of the art in automated data capture. The author also speculates on the effects of recent and ongoing changes in hardware, software and media. Current advances in the speed and flexibility of microcomputer systems have minimized most concerns over the processing time involved in using raster-scan or vector data sets. In addition, high density optical disk storage, microcomputer systems now have the capacity to handle the large data volumes of scanned data sets. Even users with limited resources may take advantage of high resolution scanning by working with service companies which will scan maps or images for as little as 200 to 500.