Freshman Develops New Technique For Drawing Maps With Computers

A Harvard freshman has made an important breakthrough in the use of computers for map-making, and 50 experts in the field attended a seminar in the Faculty Club yesterday to hear his report.

Donald S. Shepard '69 discussed the technique he has developed at the regular seminar of the Laboratory for Computer Graphics. Howard T. Fisher director of the Laboratory, described Shepard's work as brilliant, and said that it solved one of the most difficult problems in computer map-making.

Shepard has developed a new technique for "Interpolation of data" the process of drawing maps for an entire area when information is available only about isolated points. Shepard cited the example of mapping the contours of the floor of a harbor on the basis of soundings made at individual points.

The Laboratory will now use Shepard's technique in place of the original technique which Fisher devised.

Shepard began his work on the new process in Fisher's freshman seminar where the freshman's work was so promising that the Laboratory hired him as a paid research fellow.

Fisher said that Shepard's presentation attracted a much larger audience than any of the Laboratory's previous meetings William Warntz of the American Geographic Society one of the country's leading geographers, flow in from New York especially to attend the meeting.