From wallpaper to maps

Photo: Geographers working with Scitex at the NGI in the 1980s.

Herman Prils (employed 1976-2010)

In the early 1980s, the NGI converted a machine originally intended for printing repetitive patterns on wallpaper into a device for making digital maps. This was a system from the company Scitex, short for Scientific Textile, which developed software and computers for colour printing on textiles. The Scitex Response 250, introduced in 1979, was revolutionary in its day. The machine could scan images in high quality, digitally process them and print them as computer files on photographic film.

At the NGI, the software of this machine was modified so that instead of patterns for wallpaper, we could design map symbols that we then printed on film. Where previously we had to create a film for each colour individually and by hand, we were now suddenly able to print the required print films per colour from a single computer file. Using those films, the printer was then able to print maps in large runs. This innovation represented a huge efficiency gain and marked the beginning of the transition to digital mapping.