For almost ten years, the Department of Geography and Public Planning at Northern
Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona has offered a BS degree in Geographic Information
Management. The degree program stresses teaching practical spatial analysis in an
automated analytical cartography and GIS environment. We have selected Golden Software's
line of mapping software (Didger, Mapviewer and Surfer) to be included for use within this
degree program.
We have several founding-tenants that guided the development of this degree. We arrange
our courses in a general-to-specific pyramid approach. Foundation courses lead into survey
courses and the survey courses lead into very software-specific courses at the higher
levels. We want our students to see the big-picture and diversity of software design
before becoming engrossed with one specific brand of software. We prefer to use several
different lines of software to expose students to as many different interfaces and
design/operation philosophies as possible. We are also adamant that students learn how and
why mapping software operates the way it does, along with its error and limitations and
not just how to use it.
- We have found Golden Software's line of mapping software to be a good choice to use in
University teaching settings because:
- Easy-to-use yet professional standard interfaces
- Well developed tutorial material provided
- Extensive data import capability
- Numerous analytical options (Surfer has the most extensive collection of interpolation
algorithms we have seen and Didger's new projection capabilities allow for on-the-fly
projection changes)
- Fairly flexible graphic layout capabilities
- Numerous export formats for further map/data use and modification
In our Analytical and Computer Cartography course, we emphasize the theory and
primitives behind automated mapping and GIS as well as spatial analysis and map layout. We
use all three Golden Software products in this class. Didger is used as data input and
database building tool. We like the intuitive wizard to get students used to map to tablet
registration procedures and concepts. The new object editing features in Didger 2 make it
the easiest and most flexible spatial database builder we have yet seen. Far easier and
more powerful than input routines supplied with most high cost GIS products. We use
MapViewer in two capacities, 1) as a simple data to object viewer after they have carried
out some numeric operation on their data sets with text editors or spreadsheets and 2) as
the final cartographic analysis and layout package to create finished map products. We use
Surfer to teach interpolation and surface modeling fundamentals.
Since we stress basic concepts and primitive operations in this course, the students
must have easy access to the database details if needed. Golden Software has always
supported a number of formats that are ASCII based (such as .BNA). These data structures
are easy for the student to manipulate in text editors or spreadsheets, in custom written
programs and are importable into other GIS and mapping software. We make extensive use of
Golden Software's modern interface and strong analytical capabilities to give students
working experience with software they are likely to encounter on the job but at the same
time the students can export the data set in ASCII format to see what has gone on behind
the scenes.
It is difficult to find professional level software that also allows students to learn
fundamental "behind the scenes" concepts. We have found Golden Software's full
line of products to work very well for this application.
-Dr. Leland R. Dexter
