Analytical and Computer Cartography (Prentice Hall Series in Geographic Information Science)

Rating:
Summary: What went wrong??
Review: The first edition of this book is wonderful. Good writing and clear, easy to understand graphics made this book a must-have for anyone interested in computer cartography. I came at this book from an robotics standpoint and soon decided that this book would make a great addition to my personal library (I had checked out the 1st edition from the department's library). When I saw that the 2nd edition was out, I thought "Hey! Even better!" Sad to say, I was wrong. I will be charitable and assume that Clarke must have been rushed into putting this edition out without the chance to check his work. In the Preface, he mentions that the second edition was ported over to a new word processor, redrafted every figure inthe book and captured images directly into the word processor from the sample applications. This admission only makes me wonder: What went wrong?? The figures are not registered correctly, oversized to the point that key sub figures and parts of figures are totally missing and labels are even missing or (worse) labeling the wrong thing! Some specific examples are figures 6.02, 6.03 and 8.07 in the first edition, now 8.2, 8.3 and 10.6 in the second. In all three cases, the 2nd edition figures are oversized. In the case of figure 6.03/8.3, "Freeman codes as a line data structure," the lines are so fat and unregistered that the figure is no longer clearly understandable. Even worse is figure 8.07/10.6, "Dutton's fractal enhancement for coastlines" In the first edition, this figure is in two parts; the first shows how the fractal enhancement algorithm shifts data points to improve the overall appearance of the coastline, while the second part shows a sample low-resolution coastline and the associated fractally-enhanced coastline. In the second edition figure, only the first subfigure is visible, bloated to the point that it makes little sense to anyone who hasn't seen the first edition figure. Worse yet, the second subfigure is completely missing! Without that, the diagram is without visual context and makes no sense. Just to be fair, I took both editions and showed them around the department and asked the quesiton: Is either book a first draft? If so, which? If not, which is second edition and which is forst edition? The answer came back unanimous that the so-called second edition must be the rough draft, with the older, first edition as the actual published draft. When the truth was revealed, reactions ranged from laughter to shock and even to anger that quality control in the publishing industry had fallen so low. Considering that cartography is primarily a visual medium, mistakes of this caliber are simply inexcusable. In contrast, the writing is still of good quality. However, without understandable figures associated with the concepts presented in text, what were simple ideas and insightful statements have become instead cryptic and confusing. It is really a shame to see such a good book fall so far. I still strongly reccomend the first edition of this book (if you can find it). DO NOT buy the second editon unless you really need it. Your money would be better spent calling Mr. Clarke to complain. Sorry, but that' the way I see it.