Inner-mountain Cartography - from Surveying towards Information Systems

Karstand cave-systems are complex, 3-dimensional phenomena. Mapping and visualizing them represents a challenge to cartographers, morphologists and computer-graphics-specialists. Surveying and sketching of cave-maps as well as the construction of 3D-cave-models (incl. geology) are important parts of cave exploration and research. Besides supporting the efforts of speleologists, cave maps and 3D-models provide geologists and hydrologists with a better insight into the geological and tectonic structure of a given mountain range. This contribution deals with the computer-assisted generation of 2D cave maps and illustrates one possible implementation of a 3D cave information system. It is important to emphasize that neither a 2D-map nor a 3D-model is able to appropriately represent the complex structure of cave systems and their surrounding geology. In combination with observations in related disciplines (e.g. geology, hydrology, morphology, climate research, ...) they help to better arrange the "puzzle" of complex cave systems and understand their genesis.