Geovisualisation Beyond Maps: Addressing Challenges in Visualising Geospatial Data Using Non-map-based Geography Encodings

超越地图的地理可视化：使用非基于地图的地理编码解决地理空间数据可视化的挑战

• 批准号: 2582044
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2582044
• 关键词: Geovisualisation; Beyond; Maps; Addressing; Challenges

Typically, visualisations of geospatial data are based on maps. There are many established types of thematic maps, e.g., choropleth or proportional symbol maps. However, particularly for complex datasets, such as network data [1] and large multivariate data (in which many variables in addition to geographic locations need to be visualised), maps suffer from various challenges such as overlapping symbols or markers, visual clutter, and geographic distortion. Beyond these visual issues, there may be additional considerations regarding the use of maps, for example, maps of COVID-19 case numbers have been shown not to increase public knowledge and behaviour [2].This PhD project is based on the hypothesis that, instead of trying to mitigate and reduce these issues on map-based representations, they can (for many applications) be avoided entirely by using alternative visual encodings not based on conventional maps. Such non-map-based visualisation designs do not encode geospatial information as horizontal and vertical positions on a screen, but rather use alternative encodings based on distortion, abstraction, spatial ordering or grouping, colour-coding, and more. As such, they can use the position of elements on the screen to visualise attributes other than geolocation. This opens up opportunities for more flexible visual encodings that centre other aspects of the data, instead of the map-based layout dominating the visualisation. Therefore, they are mainly suitable for applications in which the geographic context is required as a reference, but not the primary information to be communicated. One major category in this space are schematized maps, which "[transform] cartographic maps to be more visualization-like, emphasizing the display of data over geographic accuracy" [3, p.1]. A number of examples of such techniques are included in [1] (geospatial networks) and [3] ('map-like' visualisations).The first step of this project is to get an overview of existing non-map-based visualisations and visualisation techniques and to identify avenues for creating new methods. This could lead to a taxonomy or structured design space of non-map-based visualisations. Based on this, I plan to develop novel non-map-based visualisation techniques in the context of a case study and evaluate them using controlled quantitative and qualitative studies with experts and non-experts. Furthermore, I will explore strategies to teach users how to read these novel visualisations, as they may require support to understand unfamiliar visual encodings.[1] Schöttler, S., Yang, Y., Pfister, H., and Bach, B. (2021) "Visualizing and Interacting with Geospatial Networks: A Survey and Design Space". To be published in Computer Graphics Forum.[2] Thorpe, A., Scherer, A.M., Han P.K.J., Burpo, N., Shaffer, V., Scherer, L., Fagerlin, A. (2021) "Exposure to Common Geographic COVID-19 Prevalence Maps and Public Knowledge, Risk Perceptions, and Behavioral Intentions". JAMA Netw Open. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.33538[3] Hogräfer, M., Heitzler, M. and Schulz, H.-J. (2020), The State of the Art in Map-Like Visualization. Computer Graphics Forum, 39: 647-674. https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.14031

通常，地理空间数据的可视化基于地图。专题地图有许多既定类型，例如等值线图或比例符号图。然而，特别是对于复杂的数据集，例如网络数据[1]和大型多元数据（其中除了地理位置之外的许多变量都需要可视化），地图面临着各种挑战，例如重叠的符号或标记、视觉混乱和地理扭曲。除了这些视觉问题之外，关于地图的使用可能还需要考虑其他因素，例如，COVID-19 病例编号地图已被证明不会增加公众知识和行为 [2]。该博士项目基于这样的假设：与其试图在基于地图的表示上减轻和减少这些问题，不如通过使用不基于传统地图的替代视觉编码来完全避免这些问题（对于许多应用而言）。这种非基于地图的可视化设计不会将地理空间信息编码为屏幕上的水平和垂直位置，而是使用基于失真、抽象、空间排序或分组、颜色编码等的替代编码。因此，他们可以使用屏幕上元素的位置来可视化地理位置以外的属性。这为更灵活的视觉编码提供了机会，这些编码以数据的其他方面为中心，而不是主导可视化的基于地图的布局。因此，它们主要适用于需要地理背景作为参考而不是要传达的主要信息的应用。这一领域的一个主要类别是模式化地图，它“[将]制图地图变得更加可视化，强调数据的显示而不是地理准确性”[3，p.1]。 [1]（地理空间网络）和 [3]（“类地图”可视化）中包含了此类技术的许多示例。该项目的第一步是概述现有的非基于地图的可视化和可视化技术，并确定创建新方法的途径。这可能会导致非基于地图的可视化的分类或结构化设计空间。基于此，我计划在案例研究的背景下开发新颖的非基于地图的可视化技术，并使用专家和非专家的受控定量和定性研究来评估它们。此外，我将探索教用户如何阅读这些新颖的可视化的策略，因为他们可能需要支持来理解不熟悉的视觉编码。 [1] Schöttler, S.、Yang, Y.、Pfister, H. 和 Bach, B. (2021)“地理空间网络可视化和交互：勘察和设计空间”。将发表在计算机图形学论坛上。[2] Thorpe, A.、Scherer, A.M.、Han P.K.J.、Burpo, N.、Shaffer, V.、Scherer, L.、Fagerlin, A. (2021)“了解常见地理 COVID-19 患病率地图和公众知识、风险认知和行为意图”。 JAMA 网络公开赛。 https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.33538[3] Hogräfer, M.、Heitzler, M. 和 Schulz, H.-J。 (2020)，类地图可视化的最新技术。计算机图形论坛，39：647-674。 https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.14031