Geovisualization of Human Hybrid Activity‐Travel Patterns

Abstract

AbstractWhile GIS‐based geovisualization techniques have been fruitfully employed in a wide range of fields, they have not been applied to explore human hybrid activity‐travel patterns (i.e. the patterns of people's activities and/or travel in both the physical and virtual worlds). This study develops two geovisualization approaches using 3D and 2D GIS techniques to address the difficulties faced by past studies. First, the notions of information cube and hybrid 3D space‐time paths are developed to accommodate cyberspatial activities in exploratory data analysis. Second, a new representation of 2D space‐time paths that incorporates parallel coordinate plots is developed for exploring the multiple attributes of people's Internet and physical activities. These two methods were implemented using ArcObjects and the Visual Basic for Applications environment in ArcGIS. They were used to visualize a complex Internet‐activity diary dataset collected in Columbus (Ohio, USA). The study shows that the 3D and 2D geovisualization methods developed allow us to uncover important patterns in hybrid human activity‐travel behavior.