Digital Maps Vs. Paper Maps

Introduction

The debate between digital maps and paper maps is long-standing and inconclusive. It’s hard to say which one is better; both have advantages and disadvantages. It’s that ultimately, it’s up to you, the individual, to decide what works best for you.

Mapping is a timeless science as well as an art form that has existed since the dawn of time. It has been used by many individuals, particularly early travelers and explorers, to identify locations and locate ways to destinations.

Hundreds of years ago, early mapmakers made the error of depicting California as an island off North America’s west coast. However, as technology progresses, digital maps are less prone to make the same error.

Maps aren’t simply for people who want to travel. People use maps to find their way around any setting or place. They can be used as a navigation and orientation tool. This article will compare digital maps to paper maps.

Maps have evolved into an app that we can access on our phones in this digital age. With this development, mapmakers can now use cutting-edge technologies such as 3D mapping and augmented reality. This has resulted in a significant shift in how we engage with maps.

Using Digital Maps vs. Paper Maps:

Paper maps are considered an outmoded technology. Digital maps are increasingly becoming the standard. This is because digital maps are more accurate, dynamic, and provide more information than paper maps.

Paper Maps

A paper map is a simple, time-tested method of connecting you to your environment, both spatially and in terms of direction. I can estimate mileage quite accurately and get a better feel of travel time, challenges, and how long certain legs of the trip will take by using an atlas or a fold-out paper map.

Paper Maps Advantages

Let us look at some of the benefits of Paper Maps

• Paper maps do not require batteries: GPS receivers are excellent for navigating and arriving to your destination. In a survival emergency, however, paper maps are a reliable backup to GPS receivers, smartphones, and tablets.

Paper maps can be a lifesaver in congested scenarios where you lose battery power or signal. When combined with a compass, you can determine your location.

Unfortunately, paper maps are becoming increasingly scarce. A Road Atlas, for example, is no longer available at your local supermarket. Backroadmaps.com and maps.com are two options.

• It is simpler to set up and markup: It’s sometimes easier to mark up a paper map when you’re out in the field. Then, in the office, you can digitize it and worry about it afterwards.

Field app setup, such as Esri Collector + Survey123 or QField, takes effort and experience. You must prepare all layers, including those for offline use.

Paper maps, on the other hand, are quick and simple to create. When a paper map is laminated, it becomes waterproof. Then you can roll it up and put it in your backpack to use during a rainstorm.

• Paper maps improve spatial awareness: Our spatial awareness has deteriorated as a result of our over-reliance on GPS. You become more preoccupied with your phone and less concerned with your surroundings.

When you follow directions from GPS apps or navigation systems, you don’t get a complete picture of your surroundings. Instead, you grow overly reliant on technology.

GPS receivers, despite their convenience, make us less conscious of our surroundings. Paper maps’ larger scale and richer detail give us an advantage in geographic perception.

• Offline Access: One of the key advantages of paper maps is that they may be consulted even when there is no signal or internet connection.
• Provide more detail and research than computerized maps.

Disadvantages of Paper Maps

They include:

• Expensive & Requires A Lot of Storage Space: They are expensive and require a lot of storage space.
• Extra Care is Required: If the map becomes wet, it will become unreadable and useless.
• Physical Maps Must Be Purchased: Paper maps must be purchased from local stores and are more expensive than digital maps. They also necessitate a large number of resources to manufacture, ranging from paper and ink to water and power.
• To accurately interpret symbols on paper maps, map reading abilities are essential.
• Paper maps are difficult to update on a regular basis because it takes more time and money. This can be a problem when roads alter or buildings are demolished, for example, because the maps do not represent such changes.
• Paper maps are immobile.
• Paper maps only depict characteristics as two-dimensional objects.
• For navigation and directions, paper maps are used in conjunction with a Compass.

Digital Maps

A digital Map is a digital representation of the Earth or the universe, often in 3D. Digital maps are available online and can be accessed anywhere.

A Digital Map is an interactive computer display that gives you locations of places on the earth with the help of GPS functionality and public data sources such as Google Maps and Facebook Places.

A digital map provides an accurate depiction of earth’s surface at a fraction of the cost and time taken to print paper maps. Digital maps have numerous advantages over paper maps as compared to their predecessor:

Digital Maps Pros

The benefits include:

• Digital maps can be downloaded for free: Instead of being sold in physical stores, digital maps are available online and can be downloaded for free.
• Storage necessitates digital space: Digital maps do not necessitate physical storage space. They are saved in digital format, which necessitates the use of digital space.
• Displays all features, including time and the actual structure: Symbols are not used to depict features on digital maps. Instead, they display the actual features as well as the time.
• Can be easily updated: Because digital maps are typically real-time representations of an area, they can be easily updated because changes are automatically updated.
• It is dynamic: Unlike paper maps, digital maps are dynamic, which means that one can select to view past versions of the represented area.
• Digital maps can represent all features at once: Digital maps may be used to depict all features of a particular area at once. They allow you to filter for specific features while also displaying the full area.
• Digital maps are not restricted to any particular area: Digital maps are not restricted to displaying only a specific area based on scale. They can be expanded to show the full region.
• Because it depicts a real-life thing, it may not necessitate any specific skills: Because the features on digital maps are true representations of real-world objects, they are easier to interpret than paper maps.
• Digital maps are good in showing area overlays from many angles because they do not only provide 2D representations of a region. They can be used to display the 3D angle of the region as well as the overlays.
• For navigation, GPS can be combined with digital maps.
• Searchable: A digital map is a map that is presented on a digital device. It is usually interactive, with the user being able to zoom in and out of different portions of the map by stretching the screen’s image with two fingers.

Digital Maps cons

• Digital maps can only be accessible online: Digital maps can only be accessed online. To access them online, one must have an internet connection.
• Because it is always up to date, it cannot be used to depict changes in land forms: Because digital maps are continuously up to date, they may not be suitable for displaying changes in land formations.

Summary

Users will be able to make better decisions in the future if they prefer one sort of map over the other, as the use of both types of maps grows. Paper maps are becoming obsolete as digital maps become more popular.

However, some people still prefer paper maps to digital maps for a variety of reasons. For example, when you don’t have a cell phone signal or a WIFI connection.

FAQs

What is an advantage of a digital map over a printed map?

They are more up-to-date (can be remotely updated at a much lower cost and labor), they may contain a lot of different information, and layered architecture that allows you to group data and turning them on and off doesn’t disrupt their visibility, they are interactive (answer to the selected user action)

What are the differences between paper maps and digital maps?

At such scale, paper maps have a consistent level of information over the whole map series. Again, the scale at which you view digital maps varies. A user can toggle multiple layers on and off in an interactive digital map. Digital maps can be searched.

What are the disadvantages of digital maps?

The representations will always have some level of inaccuracy or incompleteness. No map can depict all of the features that can be found in a given location at any one time: There is no map that depicts all of the features found in a given place.

All maps are deficient in some way in terms of information or data.

Are digital maps accurate?

Given the importance of safety in ADAS applications, digital maps must be extremely accurate. Some interactive solutions have been released to the market.

The EU-funded ActMAP project, for example, created procedures for online, incremental updates of digital map datasets utilizing wireless technology.

Why should we use paper maps?

Print maps allow you to gain in-depth knowledge more quickly and efficiently. Experiments show that those who read on paper have superior reading comprehension than people who read the identical content on a screen.

What is the difference between a paper map and a digital map like you would find in a GIS?

At such scale, paper maps have a consistent level of detail throughout the whole map series. Again, the scale of digital maps varies depending on the scale at which they are viewed.

The user can toggle multiple layers on and off in an interactive digital map. Maps on the internet can be searched.

How do they differ paper-based map and smartphone map?

Physical maps are fixed, and objects are represented using canonical signs and symbols. Smartphone digital maps are built on a conceptual model of a physical map, with similar features used to depict geographical geography.

They do, however, have significantly more functionality and interactivity.

Does a map always point north?

Historically, maps were not always orientated northward. Different regional and religious influences have influenced how maps are orientated over time.

Aesthetics, political objectives, egoism, and navigation are some of the other reasons why cartographers have utilized varied map orientations throughout history.

What are advantages of digital cartography over conventional one?

The majority of it is on the benefits of digital cartography over non-digital mapping, such as enhanced collaboration, less redundancy, higher production efficiency, and so on. As mobility technologies advance, the demand for ‘going digital’ grows.

Is Google map a digital map?

The move to ubiquitous digital mapping accelerates and expands that evolution, but it also changes the functions that maps play in our lives. Google Maps debuted in 2005, “and that was the watershed,” according to David Heyman, creator of the cartography firm Axis Maps.

Is the map really upside down?

“As far as we astronomers can determine, there is no such thing as ‘up’ or ‘down’ in space,” he argues. So, the solution to the question of which way up is the Earth is simple: there is no particular way up, and there is no reason to conceive of north as the top of the earth other than a historical superiority complex.

What is the top of the Earth called?

The lithosphere is the Earth’s rocky outer layer. It is composed of the brittle crust and the uppermost part of the upper mantle. The lithosphere is the Earth’s coolest and most rigid layer.

What is a paper map used for?

A paper map is a simple, time-tested method of connecting you to your environment, both spatially and in terms of direction. I can estimate mileage quite accurately and get a better feel of travel time, challenges, and how long certain legs of the trip will take by using an atlas or a fold-out paper map.

Why are digital maps better than paper maps?

Can be easily updated: Because digital maps are typically real-time representations of an area, they can be easily updated because changes are automatically updated.

It is dynamic: Unlike paper maps, digital maps are dynamic, which means that one can select to view past versions of the represented area.

Why do geographers use paper maps?

Paper maps are excellent for displaying borders and analyzing data.

Why are maps important?

They assist you in moving from one spot to another. They aid in the organization of information. They assist you in determining where you are and how to reach where you wish to go.

A park map will show you the location of trails, roads, points of interest, and vital buildings such as restrooms.