Keynote Speech
Spatial Information and Digital Humanities- Why and How Constructing A Spatio-temporal Platform and Its’ Applications
I-chun Fan
Research Fellow, Academia Sinica
Abstract
Contemporary spatial information science includes three core technologies, which are Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS), known as 3S. RS and GPS are used for spatial data collection, and GIS is a digital information management system for all spatially relevant data. These spatially relevant data are objects with geographic coordinates and represent as vector features like points, lines or polygons. All these vector and raster data are associated with the attribute data for describing the geographic characteristics or quantitative information. The integration of 3S has been the most efficient method for gathering, editing, managing, analyzing and displaying spatial information; by further integrating with the data accumulated for years about natural environment, culture, social and economic change etc., its application fields can be extended from policy orientation for natural resource management toward interdisciplinary researches in humanities and social sciences. For this purpose, the digitalization of historical maps and extension to the establishment of spatio-temporal information platform are important work.
The establishment of spatio-temporal information platform aims to efficiently integrate the information about time, place names, maps, documents etc. based on GIS technology, and display multiple spatio-temporal environments with different perspectives. This platform can be the fundamental framework for reproducing historical scenes, and through the multiple system functions in managing, analyzing, integrating and displaying spatial information, it can also become the working platform for interdisciplinary researches in humanities and social sciences. Based on the spatio-temporal information platform for continuously collecting and integrating the outcomes of historical and geographical research and applications, will promote the development of knowledge integration and innovation.