From: hatu@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Hanming Tu)
Subject: Some info about Morton number sysem
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 19:37:03 GMT

Hi, there:

     Since I posted a request about Morton's article and articles
which discuss morton numbering system, I received some help and
finally got a copy of Morton's paper from Howard Veregin in the
Department of Geography at Kent State University. Please accept my
thanks and regards. Some of them pointed out that the SPANS is
using morton number system. I don't have access to the SPANS, so I
don't know how morton number system is used in the SPANS. If
someone out there have more information to share, I would
appreciate it. Some of them ask me to forward what I would get.
Here are some of the message:

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From
usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!ames!tulane!wupost!darwin.sura.net!pala
din.american.edu!auvm!IRUCCVAX.UCC.IE!STGG8004 Fri Jul  3 14:51:10
EDT 1992

The Morton paper is one of the "classics", that is cited by
virtually everyone who ever has written about recursive
decomposition, quadtrees, Peano ordering and the like. But, as is
pointed out in the above quote, actually getting hold of a copy of
the original paper is not easy, and I sometimes wonder how many
people have in fact read it first-hand?

Duane Marble and Donna Peuquet did a valuable service in bringing
together a set of key papers on GIS, in their "Introductory
Readings" book. Is there nobody out there (a Journal editor, a
compiler of a forthcoming book, etc) who would be willing and able
to (re-) publish Morton's paper, so that it became accessible to a
wider audience? If, of course, copyright and other agreements were
cleared...

Darius

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From
usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!ames!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wupost!
darwin.sura.net!paladin.american.edu!auvm!VNET.IBM.COM!FOGARTY Fri
Jul  3 14:52:54 EDT 1992

For those in this forum looking for the 1966 IBM paper on Morton
number, I am tracing this down.  I'll post the results of my
inquiry as soon as I have something solid.  At the moment I'm up to
an IBM'er who cited the paper in a 1989 article.

Bruce Fogarty
Research Computing Specialist, IBM (Academic Information Systems)
GIS, Environmental Sciences, Global Change, Statistics,
Visualization
(214) 406-7399   ** Dallas, Texas **   Fax:  (214) 406-7523 or
-7226
Internet ID:  FOGARTY @ VNET.IBM.COM
--------------------------------------------------------------
From
zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!darwin.sura.net!paladin
.american.edu!auvm!IRUCCVAX.UCC.IE!STGG8004 Thu Jul 16 11:21:21 EDT
1992

Guy Morton's IBM paper on file sequencing was the subject of recent
discussion on this list. I have just been re-reading a copy of this
paper and was interested to see that at the time that he wrote it
(March 1966), Morton was working within the framework of the Canada
Land Inventory Project, which in turn was organized under the
(Canadian) Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development
Administration.

It is well documented that the CLI project eventually gave birth to
the Canada GIS that Roger Tomlinson (and others) developed. The
CGIS is well known as the first GIS (as the term is currently
defined) to have ever been developed, and if I remember right, it
was Tomlinson that gave us the term "GIS" itself. It is also well
known that many of the fundamental concepts and techniques of GIS
that we now take for granted were developed for, or as side-lines
to, the CGIS project: from (imperfect) memory, these include
scanning techniques, raster-to-vector (and vice versa?)
conversions, etc.

Data compression techniques were also investigated. However, I
thought that - at least in the implementation of CGIS - these were
limited to run-length encoding. Now, it appears that the project
was at least _investigating_ Morton Ordering and related techniques
as well, something I had not realized before. Is there anyone out
there on GIS-L, perhaps someone who was also involved in the
project, who could clarify Morton's role in development of the
CGIS?

I know that the CGIS is referred to in numerous papers and that
aspects of its genesis have been documented in the Big Book
(Maguire et al), and a couple of other places. But has anybody
considered writing a definitive history of the Canada GIS itself,
from cradle to grave so to speak? If such a document exists
already, I for one would be very interested to hear of it! Also,
what is the current status (if any) of the CGIS?

Darius Bartlett

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From dmarble Thu Jul 16 11:22:15 EDT 1992

CGIS is alive and well today as far as I know. CGIS was developed
as an automated analysis tool for the Canada Land Inventory under
Roger Tomlinson's direction. Much of the technical work was done by
IBM Canada (who also built the drum scanner). A discussion of the
development of CGIS and its initial technical structure can be
found in: 

     Tomlinson, Roger F., Hugh W. Calkins, and Duane F. Marble,
     1976. COMPUTER HANDLING OF GEOGRAPHIC DATA. UNESCO Natural
     Resource Research Series, No. 13. Paris: The UNESCO Press.

The use of the "Morton Matrix" by CGIS is illustrated here.
Material is also available in the book on a number of other early
GIS.
-- 
Duane F. Marble
Department of Geography                Telephone: (614) 292-2250
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio 43210                   Fax: (614) 292-6213

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis