Session Abstracts

Ignacio Fiz and Hector A. Orengo (Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology)
Feeding the beast: integration and analysis of new data types into GIS

This session aims to explore one of the most powerful features of GIS, yet one often ignored: data integration. It has been rightly suggested that the analysis’ result is as good as the quality and diversity of the data employed.
The integration of different data types is accomplished thanks to the spatial nature of the data. That is particularly evident when dealing with maps, ortophotographs, or site plans – that is two-dimensional scaled types of data. Through processes, such as ortorectification and georeferenciation, it has also been possible to adapt non-scaled data types. With the diffusion of firstly total stations and later differential GPS and photogrammetric processes, 3D data has also become an important component of many GIS geodatabases. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that other data types have also important geographical components.
Although new approaches to data integration into GIS are welcome, the main focus of the session is directed towards the development and implementation into GIS of commonly ignored data types such as old photographs, pictorial representations, texts, ethnographical accounts, environmental data, etc. The potential of those spatial representations to the study of past spaces cannot be ignored any longer: it is our thesis that the development of new integrative approaches has the potential to render GIS a much powerful tool, especially for those of us working with past landscapes, which have been so dramatically changed over the past century.

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