The Integration of Geographic Visualization with Knowledge Discovery in Databases and Geocomputation

Abstract

This paper details the research agenda of the International Cartographic Association Commission on Visualization: Working Group on Database-Visualization Links. The paper stresses the need for the closer integration of three largely disparate technologies: geographic visualization, knowledge discovery in databases, and geocomputation. The introduction explains the meaning behind these terms, the ethos behind their practice, and their connections within the broad realm of knowledge construction activities. The state of the art is then described for different approaches to knowledge construction, concentrating where possible on visual and geographically oriented methods. From these sections, a research agenda is synthesized in the form of three sets of research questions addressing: (1) visual approaches to data mining; (2) visual support for knowledge construction and geocomputation; and (3) databases and data models that must be satisfied to make visually-led knowledge construction a reality in the geographic realm. Conclusions relate this agenda to issues of (1) data, (2) geographic knowledge, and (3) the visualization environment and pose significant challenges to the way we currently represent geographic information and knowledge within computational systems.