Abstract
Abstract. The recent advancement of simulation modeling to represent phenomena in three spatial dimensions (3D) requires the development of techniques that will allow comparison of the modeling outputs in multiple dimensions. However, many existing techniques for map comparison in two spatial dimensions (2D) have been developed from non-spatial method such Cohen’s Kappa. These techniques are not yet fully extended to deal with 3D map data or simulation outcomes. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate the use of the 3D Accuracy and 3D Cohen’s Kappa coefficients to compare simulation model outputs in 3D. An existing agent-based model (ABM) of forest-fire smoke propagation was used to generate multiple scenarios for the purpose of comparing 3D simulation outputs. The results for 3D Accuracy and 3D Cohen’s Kappa produces meaningful values when comparing several scenarios with different 3D ABM outputs. This study emphasizes the need for the development of more advanced simulation output comparison techniques that operate in 3D and potentially over time (4D).
Highlights
The multidimensional characteristics of geospatial phenomena and the increase in three-dimensional (3D) and fourdimensional (4D) simulation modeling (Eshraghi et al 2012; Gobron et al 2011; Jjumba and Dragićević 2015; Narteau et al 2009) indicates the necessity to develop improved methods for simulation model output comparisons
With spatial analysis and modeling approaches advancing from two-dimensional (2D) into 3D space, and even 4D with space-time considerations, the methods required for map comparisons must evolve with this advance into 3D and 4D
Kappa is the commonly used name in Remote Sensing and GIScience studies when dealing with image or map comparisons
Summary
The multidimensional characteristics of geospatial phenomena and the increase in three-dimensional (3D) and fourdimensional (4D) simulation modeling (Eshraghi et al 2012; Gobron et al 2011; Jjumba and Dragićević 2015; Narteau et al 2009) indicates the necessity to develop improved methods for simulation model output comparisons. Accuracy does not account for chance agreement in its calculation where the two maps being compared have some degree of similarity expected due to the randomness of cell values. The Kappa coefficient has been further enhanced to multiple variants such as Fleiss’ Kappa (Fleiss 1971) which has seen use in the comparison of more than two maps (Rogers et al 2014), Fuzzy Kappa which introduces spatial fuzzy logic into the calculation of Kappa (Hagen 2003), and many others for land-use change comparisons including Kappa Histogram, Kappa Location, Kappa Simulation, Kappa Transition, and Kappa Transition Location (van Vliet et al 2011). The hierarchy of the various Kappa variants are shown in
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