Vivian Thompson (1880–1917): Not Only an Officer of the Royal Engineers

Abstract

A centenary tribute is paid to a soldier and sportsman, surveyor and inventor, artist and humorist. Vivian Thompson served in two wars, the second of which resulted in his untimely death. His Stereo‐plotter, first described to the Royal Geographical Society in 1908, remains as a memorial and as a reminder of a great opportunity which was lost. Résumé Hommage est rendu à un soldat, à un sportsman, géomètre, inventeur et à un artiste plein d'humour. Vivian Thompson participa à deux guerres, dont la dernière n'est pas sans relation avec sa mort. Son restituteur, décrit à la Royal Geographical Society en 1908, reste comme un témoin d'une grande occasion perdue. Zusammenfassung Es erfolgt eine einhundertjährige Würdigung für einen Soldaten und Sportler, Geodäten und Erfinder, Künstler und Humoristen. Vivian Thompson diente in 2 Kriegen, wobei er bedauerlicherweise im letzten einen vor‐zeitigen Tod fand. Sein im Jahre 1908 zum ersten Male in der Royal Geographical Society beschriebenes Stereokartiergerät bleibt als ein Denkmal erhalten und erinnert an eine grosse Möglichkeit, die verschenkt wurde.

Review of Remote Sensing for Land Administration: Origins, Debates, and Selected Cases

“…Moving into the first decade of the 1900s, there appear only limited relevant works (recognizing, however, that works in French are not included in this review, for which there appears to be numerous works on 'cadastre' during this period), although several are truly worth noting. Writing in 1908 [29], the remarkable Vivian Thompson, apparently later killed during World War 1 [30], picks up from the work of Deville [22] to provide a full detailed account of the tools and techniques involved in Stereo-Photo Surveying (Figure 1). Perhaps of most novelty is the discussion on the relative merits of the method versus plane-table surveying, in terms of accuracy, cost, and time-a discourse quickly settled upon by others [31], and that was to be oft returned to throughout the century, as more photogrammetric advances emerged.…”

Map‐making by air photography: 1920

“…He joined the Royal Engineers and served with the Egyptian Army from 1901 to 1911. Atkinson (1980, p. 26) notes that, in 1908 in Sudan, Newcombe was enthusiastic about the Vivian Thompson Stereo‐plotter equipment for producing maps from terrestrial photographs. He was also responsible for an early air survey in Syria.…”

Topographic relations: developing a heuristic device for conceptualising networked relations

“…The war illustrated the need for large volumes of maps to be produced quickly and, at least in continental Europe, drove practitioners to develop machinery for this task. The required theoretical and practical developments such as by Fourcade (theory of correspondence) and Thompson (Atkinson 1980; Adams 2001) enabled the accurate measurement of dimensions from imagery using semi‐automatic methods 5 . By 1930 the major technical requirements for mass and rapid production of maps were in place.…”

“…A similar convergence of technology can be traced for Thompson's Stereo‐Plotter and von Orel's machine. Debates over precedence (Atkinson 1980; Blachut and Burkhardt 1989; Collier 2002; Meier 2002) illustrate that the relations within the network were highly constrained and defined a specific region of the relational landscape within which other connections were sought to achieve a very tightly defined end, the accurate measurement of dimensions from aerial photography.…”