The relevance of cartographic scale in interactive and multimedia cartographic information systems

The application of new technologies in the processes of gathering, analysing, transforming, visualizing and communicating of space data and geoinformation offers a great challenge for cartography. Cartographic information provision as described in several cartographic models, which is included in cartographic information systems depend on the graphical presentation/visualization at certain scales. That necessitates a need to define the capacity or content borders (geometry and semantic) for cognition and communication. However, currently we need and use maps as a vehicle for transportation of spatial and temporal information. Graphic constructions of geoanalogies, linked with interaction, multimedia sequences and animations, support effective geocommunication, bridging the gaps imposed by having to work at pre-defined scales. This paper illustrates two interactive information systems, which were conceptualised and prototyped at the Institute of Cartography and Geomedia Technique, Vienna University of Technology.