cartography Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...

and

geographic information systems A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

, rubbersheeting is a form of

coordinate transformation In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine and standardize the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The coordinates are ...

that warps a vector dataset to match a known geographic space. This is most commonly needed when a dataset has systematic positional error, such as one digitized from a historical map of low accuracy. The mathematics and procedure are very similar to the georeferencing of raster images, and this term is occasionally used for that process as well, but ''image georegistration'' is an unambiguous term for the raster process.

Applications in history and historical geography

Rubbersheeting is a useful technique in HGIS, where it is used to digitize and add old maps as feature layers in a modern GIS. Before aerial photography arrived, most maps were highly inaccurate by modern standards. Rubbersheeting may improve the value of such sources and make them easier to compare to modern maps.

Software

* ESRI's

ArcGIS ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri. ArcGIS was first released in 1982 as ARC/INFO, a command line-based GIS. ARC/INFO was later merged into ArcGIS De ...

8.3+ has the capability of rubbersheeting vector data, and ArcMap 9.2+ may also rubber-sheet raster layers. * Autodesk's AutoCAD Map 3D and AutoCAD Civil 3D (which includes most of AutoCAD Map 3D's functionality) allows a user to rubbersheet vector data, and Autodesk's Raster Design (an add-in product for

AutoCAD AutoCAD is a 2D and 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software application developed by Autodesk. It was first released in December 1982 for the CP/M and IBM PC platforms as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics control ...

-based products) allows a user to rubbersheet

raster data upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...

. * Blue Marble Geographics' Global Mapper allows a user to rubbersheet

. * Cadcorp Spatial Information System software
SIS Map Modeller
is offering a tool for rubbersheeting data layers. *

QGIS QGIS is a geographic information system (GIS) software that is free and open-source. QGIS supports Windows, macOS, and Linux. It supports viewing, editing, printing, and analysis of geospatial data in a range of data formats. Its name comes from ...

Georeferencer plug-in provides a number of transformation types including Thin Plate Spline, which enables full rubber-sheeting. QGIS is a free open-source GIS package.
Allmaps
is a free and open source program that support in-browser rubber-sheeting of

IIIF The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF, spoken as 'triple-I-eff') defines several application programming interfaces that provide a standardised method of describing and delivering images over the web, as well as "presentation ...

images using

WebGL WebGL (short for Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript Application programming interface, API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-in (computing), plug-ins. WebGL is fully integra ...

technology.

Applications in history and historical geography

Software

See also

References

Further reading