Geographic Visualization Research Articles

Burgon's Expectation: Ancient and New Cartographic Visualization for Numismatic Data and Coin Finds

Using Callegher's catalogue of ancient coin finds in the Trieste Province of NE Italy from the Ritrovamenti monetali di età romana nel Friuli Venezia Giulia, a spatial database of the findings (third century bce to sixth century ce) was created. The authors later developed a client side Web mapping application. All Free and Open Source Software tools were used to build both a spatial database (postgreSQL and PostGIS) and a Web mapping application (QGIS and Leaflet). The Web mapping application allows the user to find the territorial distribution of Celtic, Roman (Republican and Imperial), Byzantine, and Longobard coins. Each coin was georeferenced and linked to the denomination of the ancient coin, the authority that issued it, the coin mint, and the finding site. This project highlights not only the efficiency of the database methodology in managing numismatic data, but also the great potential of the geographic visualization process to reveal hidden relationships between the finding sites and the data connected with the ancient use of coins (e.g., ancient monetary areas, economic and commercial buffer zones, trade routes)

NBIC Biofeeds: A Digital Tool for Open Source Biosurveillance across Federal Agencies

ObjectiveThe National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) isdeveloping a scalable, flexible open source data collection, analysis,and dissemination tool to support biosurveillance operations bythe U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its federalinteragency partners.IntroductionThe NBIC integrates, analyzes, and distributes key informationabout health and disease events to help ensure the nation’s responsesare well-informed, save lives, and minimize economic impact. NBICserves as a bridge between Federal, State, Local, Territorial, andTribal entities to conduct biosurveillance across human, animal, plant,and environmental domains. The integration of information enablesearly warning and shared situational awareness of biological eventsto inform critical decisions directing response and recovery efforts.To meet its mission objectives, NBIC utilizes a variety of datasets, including open source information, to provide comprehensivecoverage of biological events occurring across the globe. NBICBiofeeds is a digital tool designed to improve the efficiency ofreviewing and analyzing large volumes of open source reportingby biosurveillance analysts on a daily basis; moreover, the systemprovides a mechanism to disseminate tailored feeds allowing NBIC tobetter meet the specific information needs of individual, interagencypartners. The tool is currently under development by the Departmentof Energy (DOE), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)and it is in a testing and evaluation phase supported by NBICbiosurveillance subject matter experts. Integration with the DefenseThreat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Biosurveillance Ecosystem(BSVE) is also underway. NBIC Biofeeds Version 1 is expected tobe fully operational in Fiscal Year 2017.MethodsThe PNNL is applying agile methodology to streamline the buildof NBIC Biofeeds to specifications required for operational use byNBIC and its federal interagency partners. Biosurveillance, analytics,and system engineering subject matter experts provide guidance onthe implementation of features in the tool to ensure functionalityaligns with operational workflows and production support. PNNL isleveraging software from a previous government effort to repurposethe technology to meet NBIC needs. NBIC Biofeeds incorporatesthe open source, document-orientated MongoDB database to captureuser- and system-generated metadata on hundreds of thousandsof records, in part, to establish baselines to aid prospective andretrospective analysis on emerging biological events. NBIC Biofeedsintegrates a biosurveillance taxonomy (uniquely developed by NBIC),which includes input from interagency partners to recognize criticalcharacteristics of a biological event. In NBIC Biofeeds Version1, metadata capture of reported events is done manually by NBICanalysts; however, moving forward in Version 2, the tool will befurther automated to flag significant reporting on biological eventswith a human remaining in the loop to confirm the validity of thesystem-generated tags.ResultsTo serve as a one-stop tool for open source biosurveillance,NBIC Biofeeds automatically harvests information from thousandsof websites, utilizing third party aggregators, paid subscriptions todata feeds, and scraping of high priority sources. Users can developdesired queries for automatic updating, leverage a unique reviewand curation mechanism, and further analyze data from topical,geographic, and temporal visualization features in the tool. To meetNBIC’s information sharing needs, the tool allows for design oftailored RSS feeds and electronic message-based delivery of analysison biological events, intended for recipients in the government withunique missions around human, animal, plant, and environmentalhealth.ConclusionsThrough current testing and evaluation – underway bybiosurveillance subject matter experts – NBIC Biofeeds isdemonstrating value in supporting open source biosurveillanceby the Center for more rapid recognition and sharing of key eventcharacteristics. Centralizing access and analysis of this datasetinto a single system is increasing the efficiency of daily, globalbiosurveillance, while enhancing the value of information identifiedthrough use of the querying, curation, and production support featuresin the tool.

Using Coefficient to Distinguish Ambient/Focal Visual Attention During Cartographic Tasks.

We demonstrate the use of the ambient/focal coefficient Κ for studying the dynamics of visual behavior when performing cartographic tasks. Participants viewed a cartographic map and satellite image of Barcelona while performing a number of map-related tasks. Cartographic maps can be viewed as summary representations of reality, while satellite images are typically more veridical, and contain considerably more information. Our analysis of traditional eye movement metrics suggests that the satellite representation facilitates longer fixation durations, requiring greater scrutiny of the map. The cartographic map affords greater peripheral scanning, as evidenced by larger saccade amplitudes. Evaluation of Κ elucidates task dependence of ambient/focal attention dynamics when working with geographic visualizations: localization progresses from ambient to focal attention; route planning fluctuates in an ambient-focalambient pattern characteristic of the three stages of route end point localization, route following, and route confirmation.

Modeling Both the Space and Place of Coastal Environments: Exploring an Approach for Developing Realistic Geovisualizations of Coastal Places

Effective coastal planning incorporates the variety of user needs, values, and interests associated with coastal environments. This requires understanding how people relate to coastal environments as ‘places’, imbued with values and meanings, and accordingly, tools that can capture place and connect with people’s ‘sense of place’ have the potential for supporting effective coastal management strategies. Realistic, immersive geographical visualizations, i.e., geovisualizations, theoretically hold potential to serve such a role in coastal planning; however, significant research gaps exist around this application context. Firstly, place theory and geovisualizations are rarely explicitly linked in the same studies, leaving questions around how to model ‘coastal place', as well as coastal space. Secondly, geovisualization work has focused on terrestrial environments, and research on how to realistically model coastal places is currently in its infancy. The current study addresses the research gaps by developing a coastal geovisualization under place-based considerations, and then examining its capacity as a tool for connecting with people’s sense of place. The research uses Sidney Spit in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve (BC, Canada) as a study site, and a geovisualization was developed using a combination of ArcGIS, Adobe Photoshop, Trimble SketchUp, and Unity3D. Focus groups were assembled involving Parks Canada staff and Greater Victoria Area residents, and the geovisualization was assessed in terms of its representation of a real-world coastal place and ability for connecting with sense of place. Findings from the study indicate that the presence certain elements in coastal geovisualizations can contribute to realism and sense of place, such as people, dogs, birds, marine life, vegetation, and boats; however, simultaneously, deficiencies in numbers and varieties of these elements can detract from realism and sense of place. In addition, incorporation of soundscape and viewshed elements both demonstrated as significant to the tool’s ability to connect with sense of place, with the latter potentially being more significant among those with higher familiarity with the real-world place. Beach textures were also found to be important for the geovisualization’s ability to connect with sense of place; however, this ability can be compromised when running versions of the tool with lower graphical resolution.

Data Flow Analysis and Visualization for Spatiotemporal Statistical Data without Trajectory Information.

Geographic visualization research has focused on a variety of techniques to represent and explore spatiotemporal data. The goal of those techniques is to enable users to explore events and interactions over space and time in order to facilitate the discovery of patterns, anomalies and relationships within the data. However, it is difficult to extract and visualize data flow patterns over time for non-directional statistical data without trajectory information. In this work, we develop a novel flow analysis technique to extract, represent, and analyze flow maps of non-directional spatiotemporal data unaccompanied by trajectory information. We estimate a continuous distribution of these events over space and time, and extract flow fields for spatial and temporal changes utilizing a gravity model. Then, we visualize the spatiotemporal patterns in the data by employing flow visualization techniques. The user is presented with temporal trends of geo-referenced discrete events on a map. As such, overall spatiotemporal data flow patterns help users analyze geo-referenced temporal events, such as disease outbreaks, crime patterns, etc. To validate our model, we discard the trajectory information in an origin-destination dataset and apply our technique to the data and compare the derived trajectories and the original. Finally, we present spatiotemporal trend analysis for statistical datasets including twitter data, maritime search and rescue events, and syndromic surveillance.

Smart Solution to Improve Water-energy Nexus for Water Supply Systems

In the last years, there has been a great interest in the complex relations between energy and water, known as the Water-Energy Nexus [1]. Natural resources, such as energy and water, enable economy growth and support quality of life. The Water-Energy Nexus is considered as one of the most important multidisciplinary challenges [2] that the global growing water market [3] has to face in the forthcoming years. Currently, many water systems are not managed sustainably enough. Water Utilities face other challenges, such as infrastructure aging and poor cost-recovery, leading to a lack of finance for O&M (Operation and Maintenance). Energy is required in all stages of water production and distribution, from pumping and treatment to transportation. Energy costs are a top-of-mind concern for water utilities, regardless of geography, size and level of water network efficiency [4]. On the other hand, Water Utilities are having a hard time to either improve their services or expand their network to unserved neighborhoods in developing countries.The current trend of water transmission system to the creation of DMAs (District Metered Areas) offers great possibilities of non-structural solutions that use existing data and transform them into useful information to support decision making. The Smart Metering and the use of large amounts of data from a network enhance the use of software for decision support, but it is not the only way. Smart Solutions can also be applied to networks with less recorded data, which would enhance operators’ knowledge to these data, turn them into useful information for decision-making either for the operation or the maintenance and network design. In this scope, a Smart Solution is presented. It is developed combining key factors of the energy consumption and the water supply into water networks management to obtain improvements from both water and energy fields. This non-structural solution increases resource efficiency and environmental performance of water distribution networks by using data acquisition and geographical visualization (real time & historical), weather and water demand forecasting, detection of networks events and hydraulic simulation of the network, and finally through a decision support system based on machine learning (pattern recognition and business rules techniques).As a conclusion, a non-structural solution for the Nexus issues can have a great impact on several matters (climate change, carbon footprint, WUs balance sheets, and water losses) with reasonable investment either in smart metering or networks with only a few sensors measuring.

Coming Into Focus: An Interview with Ellen Jantzen

Ellen Jantzen, the artist (www.ellenjantzen.com), works with geographic composition that focuses attention on graphic elements in a scene, which might make her career particularly interesting to those working with geographic data and visualization. Her work explores reality and time, both how it is experienced and revealed, and the healing powers of the natural environment.

HazMatMapper: an online and interactive geographic visualization tool for exploring transnational flows of hazardous waste and environmental justice

ABSTRACTHazMatMapper is an online and interactive geographic visualization tool designed to facilitate exploration of transnational flows of hazardous waste in North America (http://geography.wisc.edu/hazardouswaste/map/). While conventional narratives suggest that wealthier countries such as Canada and the United States (US) export waste to poorer countries like Mexico, little is known about how waste trading may affect specific sites within any of the three countries. To move beyond anecdotal discussions and national aggregates, we assembled a novel geographic dataset describing transnational hazardous waste shipments from 2007 to 2012 through two Freedom of Information Act requests for documents held by the US Environmental Protection Agency. While not yet detailing all of the transnational hazardous waste trade in North America, HazMatMapper supports multiscale and site-specific visual exploration of US imports of hazardous waste from Canada and Mexico. It thus enables academic researchers, waste regulators, and the general public to generate hypotheses on regional clustering, transnational corporate structuring, and environmental justice concerns, as well as to understand the limitations of existing regulatory data collection itself. Here, we discuss the dataset and design process behind HazMatMapper and demonstrate its utility for understanding the transnational hazardous waste trade.

Perinatal regionalization: a geospatial view of perinatal critical care, United States, 2010–2013

Perinatal services exist today as a dyad of maternal and neonatal care. When perinatal care is fragmented or unavailable, excess morbidity and mortality may occur in pregnant women and newborns. The objective of the study was to describe spatial relationships between women of reproductive age, individual perinatal subspecialists (maternal-fetal medicine and neonatology), and obstetric and neonatal critical care facilities in the United States to identify gaps in health care access. We used geographic visualization and conducted surface interpolation, nearest neighbor, and proximity analyses. Source data included 2010 US Census, October 2013 National Provider Index, 2012 American Hospital Association, 2012 National Center for Health Statistics Natality File, and the 2011 American Academy of Pediatrics directory. In October 2013, there were 2.5 neonatologists for every maternal-fetal medicine specialist in the United States. In 2012 there were 1.4 level III or higher neonatal intensive care units for every level III obstetric unit (hereafter, obstetric critical care unit). Nationally, 87% of women of reproductive age live within 50 miles of both an obstetric critical care unit and a neonatal intensive care unit. However, 18% of obstetric critical care units had no neonatal intensive care unit, and 20% of neonatal intensive care units had no obstetric critical care unit within a 10 mile radius. Additionally, 26% of obstetric critical care units had no maternal-fetal medicine specialist practicing within 10 miles of the facility, and 4% of neonatal intensive care units had no neonatologist practicing within 10miles. Gaps in access and discordance between the availability of level III or higher obstetric and neonatal care may affect the delivery of risk-appropriate care for high-risk maternal fetal dyads. Further study is needed to understand the importance of these gaps and discordance on maternal and neonatal outcomes.

Economic Integration and the Appalachian Experience in the Rust Belt-Sun Belt Transition

Abstract For a number of decades, Appalachia has been a region that has lacked the growth and development that neighboring regions have experienced. Interestingly, in the past thirty years, as investment relocated during the Rust Belt-Sun Belt Transition, evidence of Appalachian integration into the national economy has begun to emerge. This inclusion, however, is generally confined to Northern and Southern Appalachia, and is not fully understood. To explore the nature of this integration, this paper uses geographic visualization and a two-way ANOVA on capital, labor, and technology measures. Results indicate that Appalachian counties continued to lag in these neoclassical factors of growth when compared to non-Appalachian, Rust Belt, or Sun Belt counties, though the Appalachian lag effect lessened over time.

Geographic Visualization in Archaeology

Archaeologists are often considered frontrunners in employing spatial approaches within the social sciences and humanities, including geospatial technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS) that are now routinely used in archaeology. Since the late 1980s, GIS has mainly been used to support data collection and management as well as spatial analysis and modeling. While fruitful, these efforts have arguably neglected the potential contribution of advanced visualization methods to the generation of broader archaeological knowledge. This paper reviews the use of GIS in archaeology from a geographic visualization (geovisual) perspective and examines how these methods can broaden the scope of archaeological research in an era of more user-friendly cyber-infrastructures. Like most computational databases, GIS do not easily support temporal data. This limitation is particularly problematic in archaeology because processes and events are best understood in space and time. To deal with such shortcomings in existing tools, archaeologists often end up having to reduce the diversity and complexity of archaeological phenomena. Recent developments in geographic visualization begin to address some of these issues and are pertinent in the globalized world as archaeologists amass vast new bodies of georeferenced information and work towards integrating them with traditional archaeological data. Greater effort in developing geovisualization and geovisual analytics appropriate for archaeological data can create opportunities to visualize, navigate, and assess different sources of information within the larger archaeological community, thus enhancing possibilities for collaborative research and new forms of critical inquiry.

Climate change effects at your doorstep: Geographic visualization to support Nordic homeowners in adapting to climate change

The complexity of climate information, particularly as related to climate scenarios, impacts, and action alternatives, poses significant challenges for science communication. This study presents a geographic visualization approach involving lay audiences to address these challenges. VisAdapt™ is a web-based visualization tool designed to improve Nordic homeowners’ understanding of climate change vulnerability and to support their adaptive actions. VisAdapt is structured to enable individual users to explore several climate change impact parameters, including temperature and precipitation, for their locations and to find information on specific adaptation measures for their house types and locations. The process of testing the tool included a focus group study with homeowners in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden to assess key challenges in geographic visualization, such as the level of interactivity and information. The paper concludes that geographic visualization tools can support homeowners’ climate adaptation processes, but that certain features, such as downscaled climate information are a key element expected by users. Although the assessment of interactivity and data varied both across countries and user experience, a general conclusion is that a geographic visualization tool, like VisAdapt, can make climate change effects and adaptation alternatives tangible and initiate discussions and collaborative reflections.

Research on the Key Technology of the Visualization of Food Engineering Electromagnetic Signals

The related theory of GIS, scientific visualization and virtual reality based method used in this study cone approximation signal beam, isosurface and direct volume rendering visualization is realized food engineering electromagnetic signal shape and intensity of itself. In order to allow users to have a feel of the experience, this study also considered a key geographical visualization. With the technique and method of terrain data block scheduling to achieve a rapid indexing terrain blocks and realistic display; using massive image Pyramid block level model to realize the effective organization and management of image data. Finally, the visualization and geographic environment of the food engineering electromagnetic signal fusion, realize the food engineering electromagnetic signal display the result shows practical application value.

GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION FROM SATELLITE IMAGERY FOR GEOVISUALISATION OF SMART CITIES IN INDIA

Abstract. In the recent past, there have been large emphasis on extraction of geospatial information from satellite imagery. The Geospatial information are being processed through geospatial technologies which are playing important roles in developing of smart cities, particularly in developing countries of the world like India. The study is based on the latest geospatial satellite imagery available for the multi-date, multi-stage, multi-sensor, and multi-resolution. In addition to this, the latest geospatial technologies have been used for digital image processing of remote sensing satellite imagery and the latest geographic information systems as 3-D GeoVisualisation, geospatial digital mapping and geospatial analysis for developing of smart cities in India. The Geospatial information obtained from RS and GPS systems have complex structure involving space, time and presentation. Such information helps in 3-Dimensional digital modelling for smart cities which involves of spatial and non-spatial information integration for geographic visualisation of smart cites in context to the real world. In other words, the geospatial database provides platform for the information visualisation which is also known as geovisualisation. So, as a result there have been an increasing research interest which are being directed to geospatial analysis, digital mapping, geovisualisation, monitoring and developing of smart cities using geospatial technologies. However, the present research has made an attempt for development of cities in real world scenario particulary to help local, regional and state level planners and policy makers to better understand and address issues attributed to cities using the geospatial information from satellite imagery for geovisualisation of Smart Cities in emerging and developing country, India.

GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION FROM SATELLITE IMAGERY FOR GEOVISUALISATION OF SMART CITIES IN INDIA

In the recent past, there have been large emphasis on extraction of geospatial information from satellite imagery. The Geospatial information are being processed through geospatial technologies which are playing important roles in developing of smart cities, particularly in developing countries of the world like India. The study is based on the latest geospatial satellite imagery available for the multi-date, multi-stage, multi-sensor, and multi-resolution. In addition to this, the latest geospatial technologies have been used for digital image processing of remote sensing satellite imagery and the latest geographic information systems as 3-D GeoVisualisation, geospatial digital mapping and geospatial analysis for developing of smart cities in India. The Geospatial information obtained from RS and GPS systems have complex structure involving space, time and presentation. Such information helps in 3-Dimensional digital modelling for smart cities which involves of spatial and non-spatial information integration for geographic visualisation of smart cites in context to the real world. In other words, the geospatial database provides platform for the information visualisation which is also known as geovisualisation. So, as a result there have been an increasing research interest which are being directed to geospatial analysis, digital mapping, geovisualisation, monitoring and developing of smart cities using geospatial technologies. However, the present research has made an attempt for development of cities in real world scenario particulary to help local, regional and state level planners and policy makers to better understand and address issues attributed to cities using the geospatial information from satellite imagery for geovisualisation of Smart Cities in emerging and developing country, India.

ON THE USABILITY AND USEFULNESS OF 3D (GEO)VISUALIZATIONS – A FOCUS ON VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract. Whether and when should we show data in 3D is an on-going debate in communities conducting visualization research. A strong opposition exists in the information visualization (Infovis) community, and seemingly unnecessary/unwarranted use of 3D, e.g., in plots, bar or pie charts, is heavily criticized. The scientific visualization (Scivis) community, on the other hand, is more supportive of the use of 3D as it allows ‘seeing’ invisible phenomena, or designing and printing things that are used in e.g., surgeries, educational settings etc. Geographic visualization (Geovis) stands between the Infovis and Scivis communities. In geographic information science, most visuo-spatial analyses have been sufficiently conducted in 2D or 2.5D, including analyses related to terrain and much of the urban phenomena. On the other hand, there has always been a strong interest in 3D, with similar motivations as in Scivis community. Among many types of 3D visualizations, a popular one that is exploited both for visual analysis and visualization is the highly realistic (geo)virtual environments. Such environments may be engaging and memorable for the viewers because they offer highly immersive experiences. However, it is not yet well-established if we should opt to show the data in 3D; and if yes, a) what type of 3D we should use, b) for what task types, and c) for whom. In this paper, we identify some of the central arguments for and against the use of 3D visualizations around these three considerations in a concise interdisciplinary literature review.

ON THE USABILITY AND USEFULNESS OF 3D (GEO)VISUALIZATIONS – A FOCUS ON VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS

Whether and when should we show data in 3D is an on-going debate in communities conducting visualization research. A strong opposition exists in the information visualization (Infovis) community, and seemingly unnecessary/unwarranted use of 3D, e.g., in plots, bar or pie charts, is heavily criticized. The scientific visualization (Scivis) community, on the other hand, is more supportive of the use of 3D as it allows ‘seeing’ invisible phenomena, or designing and printing things that are used in e.g., surgeries, educational settings etc. Geographic visualization (Geovis) stands between the Infovis and Scivis communities. In geographic information science, most visuo-spatial analyses have been sufficiently conducted in 2D or 2.5D, including analyses related to terrain and much of the urban phenomena. On the other hand, there has always been a strong interest in 3D, with similar motivations as in Scivis community. Among many types of 3D visualizations, a popular one that is exploited both for visual analysis and visualization is the highly realistic (geo)virtual environments. Such environments may be engaging and memorable for the viewers because they offer highly immersive experiences. However, it is not yet well-established if we should opt to show the data in 3D; and if yes, a) what type of 3D we should use, b) for what task types, and c) for whom. In this paper, we identify some of the central arguments <i>for</i> and <i>against</i> the use of 3D visualizations around these three considerations in a concise interdisciplinary literature review.

Perspective from the Field: Innovative Geographic Visualization for Improved Understanding and Effective Public Participation in Environmental Policy Making and Implementation

Perspective from the Field: Innovative Geographic Visualization for Improved Understanding and Effective Public Participation in Environmental Policy Making and Implementation

Extending the conversation on socially engaged geographic visualization: representing spatial inequality in Buffalo, New York

ABSTRACTThis paper is situated at the intersections among GIS and geovisualization, critical social theory, and urban studies. It presents an analysis of housing segregation and unequal food and transportation access in Buffalo, New York. We demonstrate how the representation and examination of this socially complex multi-scalar issue benefits from deliberate, reflexive conversation between different critical social-spatial epistemologies. We begin with a relatively simple GIS analysis of spatial segregation and arrive through critical iteration at a more qualitatively nuanced cartogram which moves beyond representations of fixed space to reveal a much more relational situation—a case of “time-space expansion” in which the travel time needed to meet a basic daily need is much greater for the poor and people of color than it is for whiter, more affluent populations. We conclude by infusing this narrative with additional considerations from social theory to show how even a limited visualization such as ours might better critically engage broader social and discursive processes in and across urban space.

Assessing agricultural vulnerability to climate change in the Nordic countries – an interactive geovisualization approach

Nordic agriculture must adapt to climate change to reduce vulnerability and exploit potential opportunities. Integrated assessments can identify and quantify vulnerability in order to recognize these adaptation needs. This study presents a geographic visualization approach to support the interactive assessment of agricultural vulnerability to climate change. We have identified requirements for increased transparency and reflexivity in vulnerability assessments, arguing that these can be met by geographic visualization. A conceptual framework to support the integration of geographic visualization for vulnerability assessments has been designed and applied for the development of AgroExplore, an interactive tool for assessing agricultural vulnerability to climate change in Sweden. To open up the black box of composite vulnerability indices, AgroExplore enables the user to select, weight, and classify relevant indicators into sub-indices of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. This enables the exploration of underlying indicators and factors determining vulnerability in Nordic agriculture.