Experimental Cartography Unit (ECU)

The Experimental Cartography Unit (ECU) was a research unit of Britain's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), initially established at the Clarendon Press in Oxford, in 1967, to advance the art, science, technology, and practice of making maps by computers. The ECU was a phenomenon. Driven by the huge breadth of vision and ambition of its founder, it pioneered numerous developments in cartography and GIS that we now take for granted. Yet it rarely figures in GIS histories, partly because it did not operate in the United States and partly because of the attitude of David Bickmore, its founder, toward the publishing of results.

The story begins in the late 1950s but crystallized in 1963, when Bickmore, then head of the cartography unit at the Clarendon Press in Oxford, published his magnum opus, The Atlas of Britain. This was a stunning, large-format atlas illustrating a huge range of variables. It was highly unusual in that it was published by a commercial enterprise, persuaded to do so by Bickmore's past commercial success in school atlas publishing. The gestation period of the national atlas was long, and its costs ensured that it lost a significant amount of money. Bickmore drew the conclusion (probably in 1958) that only by computerizing the process of mapmaking, drawing information from a “data bank,” and combining variables and changing the graphic depiction for different purposes could cartography become topical and relevant. The immediate conclusion of this was a paper by Bickmore and (Ray) Boyle given at the International Cartographic Association and published in 1964, “The Oxford System of Automated Cartography.” At that time, of course, no commercial software existed for doing any of this.

By 1967, Bickmore had persuaded the Royal Society, Britain's National Academy of Sciences, to support his plans and various government funders, notably the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), to fund the research unit. This was set up originally in Oxford, then in the Royal College of Art (for its world-class graphic design expertise) and in Imperial College London (for its computer expertise). Despite huge problems with the interfaces between various minicomputers and devices, like light spot projectors mounted on a huge, flatbed plotter, the earliest storage cathode ray tube displays and name placement units, the ECU had a string of successes.

These successes included demonstrating to Britain's Ordnance Survey (OS) that computer-based production of their large-scale (1:1250 and 1:2500) maps could be produced automatically, and derived and generalized products at 1:10,000 scale spun off from this. Indeed, a 1971 publication showed generalized maps produced at 1:250,000 scale from the 1:2500 originals. This study, carried out in the midst of a frosty relationship between Bickmore and the OS, led the latter organization to set up what was probably the first digitizing production line in the world in 1973.

A unique characteristic of the ECU was Bickmore's breadth of interests. These were manifested in the people he appointed and the subjects he insisted that the ECU tackle. Early staff included an optical physicist, a graphic designer, a computer scientist, and a software engineer, as well as assorted geographers and cartographers. Early work in perception psychology studies on maps and photomaps were consequences, as were highly original map design and color schemes (which often infuriated traditionalists).

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