Abstract
Geospatial data has very specific characteristics that need to be carefully captured in its visualisation, in order for the user and the viewer to gain knowledge from it. The science of visualisation has gained much traction over the last decade as a response to various visualisation challenges. During the development of an open source based, dynamic two-dimensional visualisation library, that caters for geospatial streaming data, it was found necessary to conduct a review of existing geospatial visualisation taxonomies. The review was done in order to inform the design phase of the library development, such that either an existing taxonomy can be adopted or extended to fit the needs at hand. The major challenge in this case is to develop dynamic two dimensional visualisations that enable human interaction in order to assist the user to understand the data streams that are continuously being updated. This paper reviews the existing geospatial data visualisation taxonomies that have been developed over the years. Based on the review, an adopted taxonomy for visualisation of geospatial streaming data is presented. Example applications of this taxonomy are also provided. The adopted taxonomy will then be used to develop the information model for the visualisation library in a further study.
Highlights
Geospatial data has very specific characteristics that need to be carefully presented in its visualisation in order for the user and the viewer to gain knowledge from it
Geospatial data visualisation, geovisualisation, and geospatial visual analytics, have borrowed from the domain of information visualisation, which is defined as the use of computer aided, interactive visual representations of alphanumeric data in order to help users to better understand real life systems and phenomena
A comparison of various visualisation packages is beyond the scope of this review, we highlight rather the similarities and relationships that can be seen in the various taxonomies that have been deployed
Summary
Geospatial data has very specific characteristics that need to be carefully presented in its visualisation in order for the user and the viewer to gain knowledge from it. Geospatial data visualisation, geovisualisation, and geospatial visual analytics, have borrowed from the domain of information visualisation, which is defined as the use of computer aided, interactive visual representations of alphanumeric data in order to help users to better understand real life systems and phenomena. This helps the user who is effectively the viewer to understand the structure of the data and the inherent relationships (Card et al 1999, Voigt 2002, Kiem et al 2006). A comparison of various visualisation packages is beyond the scope of this review, we highlight rather the similarities and relationships that can be seen in the various taxonomies that have been deployed
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
