The Time Wave. A New Method of Visual Exploration of Geo-data in Time–space

Abstract

Today's data-rich environment creates its own problems since exploring and analysing vast volumes of spatio–temporal data have become increasingly difficult. It is suggested to approach this problem not only via location–space or attribute–space as is traditionally done in GIScience, but also via time–space. This time-visualisation approach considers the data, the user tasks and the visualisation representations, and aims to improve accessibility, exploration and analysis of huge amounts of geo-data to support geovisual analytics. To reach this objective, the time wave as the temporal visual representation is introduced. The time wave combines the strengths of both the timeline and the time wheel and as such is able to represent linear and cyclic time simultaneously, even at different levels of granularity. The time wave can be used in its role as temporal reference system, as temporal data representation tool, and as temporal interaction tool. It functions in combination with other graphic representations that are typical for location–space and attribute–space.