This case highlights transitions from the use of analog cartographic drafting tools—such as circular slide rules, lettering guides, curvimeters (used for measuring curves), and precise drafting compasses shown above—towards processes and gadgets that could create, analyze, and visualize geospatial data in a fraction of the time it would take for human hands to do the same tasks. In the pre-computer period, the most-used tools in a cartographer’s toolbox were ones that helped create precise line widths, exact curves, and standardized shapes or lettering. Today, some of these tools will only be recognizable to many modern cartographers as icons that appear in buttons as part of software used to make maps—a familiar concept to those who recognize the floppy disk as a common icon for the “Save” button in many modern software tools.
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Assorted Drafting Tools
| Title | Cartography tools |
| Year | 1970s-1990s |
| Location | David Judkins Weaver Papers, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center |