Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Coordinated Multiple Views for
Exploratory GeoVisualization
Jonathan C. Roberts
School of Computer Science, Bangor University
3.1 Introduction
Over recent years researchers have developed many different visualization forms that dis-
play geographical information, from contour plots and choropleth maps to scatter plots of
statistical information. Each of these diverse forms allows the user to see their data through
different viewpoints. In fact, it is often the case that, when the user sees the information
through different views and in different ways, they get a deeper understanding of the infor-
mation.
Geographical databases often hold a diverse range of different data and are thus complex
to understand. For example, spatial data may be held that explains a particular geographical
landscape, the land usage or details of buildings found on that land; non-spatial elements
may also be stored which detail land ownership, the salary of the land owner and other
statistical information about the land owner. The users' goal is to gain knowledge of that
information and make sense of a large volume of potentially diverse data with multiple
components and different data types.
Thus, to comprehensively understand the information contained within any complex
geographical database, the user would need to select some information to display, present
it in different forms, manipulate the results, compare objects and artefacts between views,
roll back to previous scenarios or previous sessions, understand trends by seeing the data
holistically as well as specifically, and finally take measurements of objects and areas in
the display. Consequently, developers have created specific exploration environments that
utilize coordinated multiple view techniques (CMV), where each of the views are linked
together such that any user manipulation in one view is automatically coordinated to that
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