Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
15
Geovisualization and
Time - New Opportunities
for the Space-Time Cube
Menno-Jan Kraak
Department of Geo-Information Processing, International Institute for Geo-Information
Science and Earth Observation
15.1 Introduction
Many of today's important challenges facing science and society not only have a fundamental
geographic component but also involve changes over time as well, for example, understand-
ing the impact of global environmental change, the effects of a potential outbreak and
diffusion of avian flu, or preparing scenarios for disasters such as flooding. Maps offer in-
teresting opportunities to visualize these dynamic phenomena. This is possible because the
map is no longer the map as many of us know it. Traditionally it is known for it capacity
to 'present' spatial patterns and relationships based on selection and abstraction of reality.
Although this is still very much true, the map should also be seen as a flexible interface to
geospatial data. Maps offer interaction with the data behind the visual representation and
can be linked to other views that contain alternative graphic representations. Today's maps
are instruments that encourage exploration and stimulate the user to think. The objective
of this chapter is to see how the concept of the space-time cube can be extended beyond its
original realm as defined by Hagerstrand in the late 1960s, and can support the challenges
mention above (Hagerstrand, 1970).
Although time is a fundamental geographical notion, its definition is not straightforward
(Vasiliev, 1997; Peuquet, 2002). Everyone seems to know what time is, but when one has
to explain it to someone else difficulties start. Attempting to define time results in a variety
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