In a paper delivered to Geo '89, a NATO symposium, Wing Commander G. T. Scard was tempted to summarize RAF requirements for digital geographic information as ‘raster now, vector later’.1 He avoided that temptation. However, it is still easy to assume that supplying raster data is today's quick solution to the problem of providing geographic information, and that soon raster products will be replaced by a new generation of vector products. Six years on, raster digitized mapping is becoming firmly established as a major geographic information product supplied by the Military Survey Defence Agency. Although vector data is becoming widely available, there are no defined RAF requirements to procure map displays based on vector products. It is apparent that raster data will remain an important source of displayed geographic information on which the RAF will rely for a long time. However, supplying raster mapping is not easy. There are technical problems which need further work to find solutions. This work is urgent. Systems using raster data are already in service and we cannot wait for vector data to replace raster data at some unspecified future date.
