By Jay Morgan
My layered world waits before me within,
Digital orthos, plan/topo, cadastral, and TIN.
Neither raster nor vector data my GIS lacks . . . thanks to Jack,
An onion-like mélange of geospatial features and facts.
Flashes of electrons dance on-screen making my map,
Points, lines, polygons-coordinates all-form in a snap.
Yet, digital geospatial data today is much more,
Features, their database'd attributes, and relations joined we can explore.
Cartographic visualization, we know, is both science and art,
If my map is to be my message, and tell a story, I must do my part.
A palette of a thousand colors for map features my color-blind eye struggles to peruse,
A legend, a scale bar, a north arrow, oh my! Which marginalia should my map include?
O database, my geodatabase . . . you are my system's heart and soul more or less,
If I torture you long enough with ArcGIS tools will you grudgingly confess?
I oft-ponder a question an answer for which I would pay a princely price,
Are the locations of my features you store, and their attributes, both accurate and precise?
Like Diogenes, I search for solutions to geospatial problems I face,
Wasn't ESRI software developed primarily to help us analyze space?
Yet managing data and preparing maps is the labor of far too many and not just a few,
Is maintaining cadastral data and mapping street centerlines all some users can think of for their GIS to do?
Every morning at my flat screen altar of ArcGIS I pray,
Will my ESRI-powered map machine awaken my geographer inner child again today?
My spatial psyche mouses about my virtual world with nascent glee,
In pursuit of physical and human patterns and processes that heretofore have gone unseen.
Whether wms or wfs served up by clients thin or thick,
Anyone can now view my maps, data, and models via Web browser and Internet click.
A global GeoWeb of interoperable services sharing knowledge about our Earth,
To help us understand, communicate, and collaborate . . . a "new medium" ESRI has given birth.
Here's to Jack, Roger, and the late Ian . . . geo-pioneers three,
What they once envisioned, or perhaps may have dreamed, is our present reality.
Jack has sown the seeds of our subsequent software solutions in Queen Califa's magical lands of red,
I wonder where his vision of "Geography Connecting Our World" will lead us in the years ahead?
© 2007 John M. Morgan, III
---
La verdad... lo encuentro muy siútico, pero era absolutamente necesario ;-)
El Sibarel
