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Computational Geography 167
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"Science
is what we understand well enough to teach to a computer. Art is everything
else."
Revised 21 December 2001 |
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Lecture/Lab Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:00 - Noon - 6 units
CLICC PC Classroom A (Powell 307)
Instructor: Nicholas Gessler
gessler@ucla.edu Hershey 3119 (310) 825-4728
Office MW after class
Teaching Assistant: Jon Campbell jcampbel@ucla.edu
1250 Bunche Hall (310) 825-5271
CONTRARY
TO THE REGISTRAR'S LISTINGS: The course and its content have been upgraded to
"Computational Cartography."
COMPUTATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY is an exciting, informative, and personal hands-on exploration of maps in the digital age. It is an inquiry into how we perceive and represent spatial reality and how we come to know and understand the world around us through the practices of computational cartography. We will examine how computers are changing the age-old media of map-making from the technologies of ink on paper to those of bits, bytes and phosphors on glass screen monitors. We will deconstruct the cultural contexts of mappings from their creation, through their distribution and usage, and ultimately to their obsolescence. We will foreground those coevolutionary mechanisms that link technology with culture, expanding cartographic practice across the sciences, humanities and arts. We will critique maps representing traditional geographic spaces as well as those representing other physical, sensory, and cognitive domains. This will include data translated and across sensory domains such as the spatial "visualization" of information and "sonification" of spatial events. We will evaluate the problem of keeping maps up to date and how computation has enabled us to shift from static maps (representing the fixed state of the world) to dynamic maps (representing processes in a changing world). We will touch on multiagent spatial models and simulations, the focus of the previous course in this series, those "living" maps that change and evolve completely on their own. These are the things envisioned by the cutting-edge of scientific computing, entertainment, and creative science fiction. We will look at examples developed for computer gaming, distributed artificial intelligence, cellular automata, artificial life, artificial societies, artificial culture, virtual reality, virtual environments, augmented reality, evolutionary computation and the emerging military/entertainment complex. Our goal is to familiarize ourselves with how these technologies and practices work, how they coevolve with culture, and how they can be brought to bear on geographic problems. The course makes use of lectures, discussions, outside speakers and events (whenever possible), videos, interactive experiments, and applications written by participants in a subset of the C++ programming language for creating graphical applications for the Windows PC platform. There will also be hands-on exercises the use of PhotoShop, DreamWeaver, Waypoint and SynEdit software. Outdoors, we will take part in hands-on data collection exercises using GPS devices and the Lego MindStorms "Brick," a microcomputer called the "RCX microcontroller." By the end of the course participants will be in a better position to evaluate software designed to solve geographical problems, to direct a team of programmers creating new models, and to express our own ideas as dynamic maps. We hope to provide an opportunity for you to begin to take part in this new medium of understanding.
Your Interests:
The course project is provided for you to explore a computational cartography domain close to your own interests. In addition, there may be opportunities to customize the challenges to match your individual needs.
No Prerequisites:
There are absolutely no prerequisites other than interest in the topic. This course differs markedly from PIC and CS courses in programming on two accounts. First, this course focuses on mapping practices and the practicalities and promises of computation in its evolution. Second, this course utilizes only a small subset of the C++ language as well as an abundance of drag-and-drop graphical components and routines. It is not unusual for you to earn an "A" even if you've never programmed a computer. You will have an advantage if you are comfortable working with PCs, browsing the Web, and sending and receiving E-mail. We will spend some time on these skills and you will have your own website up and running by the end of the first week. Make sure to contact Bruin-On-Line to get your own identification, password, email and website. Please familiarize yourself with the services they offer.
Don't be frightened by the thought of programming. We will be using new visual tools with drag-and-drop components. It is really not that difficult. We welcome participants from all departments. We want you! Read what previous participants have said. Check out the participant reviews and the instructor's profile. Please email me with any questions at gessler@ucla.edu.
Please arrive on the first day of class with:
Required Texts:
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ATLAS OF CYBERSPACE amazon.com
= $27.99 plus shipping and handling |
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The Pattern on the Stone – The Simple
Ideas that Make Computers Work, by Danny Hillis. Basic Books, New York
(1998). An easy and enjoyable read. amazon.com
= $10.40 plus shipping and handling |
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C++ Guide. BarCharts,
Quick Study - Computer. A six-page cheat sheet on the C++ programming
language. available from instructor = $4.00 |
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Growing Artificial Societies – Social
Science from the Bottom Up, by Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell. MIT Press,
Cambridge (1996). A quick read for the overall strategy by week three.
More in-depth reading will be assigned. amazon.com
= $24.00 plus shipping and handling |
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Other readings will
be available at no cost from the instructor or on the Internet.
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Books on Reserve:
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Envisioning Information by Edward
R. Tufte 1990 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0961392118/qid=950810214/sr=1-7/103-8963442-0381430 |
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The Visual Display of Quantitative
Information by Edward R. Tufte 1992 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/096139210X/qid=950810214/sr=1-5/103-8963442-0381430 |
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Visual Explanations : Images and
Quantities, Evidence and Narrative by Edward R. Tufte 1997 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0961392126/qid=950810214/sr=1-6/103-8963442-0381430 |
Videos on Reserve:
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Lost
at Sea - The Search for Longitude |
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More to come...
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Grading Formula:
| Eight weekly challenges (5% each). |
40%
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| Mini-Reports, participation in discussions and classroom attendance (3 absences are permitted with no penalty). |
30%
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| One final project and class presentation on a mapping practice that interests you. How has that practice coevolved with culture and technology from pre-computational days to the present? What trajectory is its evolution likely to follow in the future? Back up your arguments with literature and Internet searches. You should be looking for opportunities for new converging technologies. |
30%
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| Total possible points. |
100%
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| PLAGIARISM is passing off someone else's ideas as your own. When you use someone else's work you must provide a proper citation. Plagiarized work will not be accepted. Reflect on other peoples' ideas and give them credit. It is your critique of their work that determines your success in this class. Do us all a favor and don't plagiarize... |
