This issue of the Journal contains selected papers from the European Symposium on Cartography, held in Vienna, Austria in November 2015. The papers provide an insight into some of the research activities of European colleagues.
The following introductory piece is provided by Georg Gartner and Haosheng Huang, organizers of the Symposium.
William Cartwright
Anne Ruas
Introduction
Much digital data generated today has a spatial component. Depicting, analyzing and communicating this spatial data has been a cartographic concern for decades. Many methods, tools and technologies have been developed in cartography to effectively communicate this data to humans to support orienting in the environment, understanding (complex) natural and social phenomena, as well as making social, political and economic decisions. In recent years, with the advent of the information age and the growing volume of this data, cartography as a discipline has become even more important and has gained much interest from expert and novice map users.
In response to these rapid advances, the first International Cartographic Association European Symposium on Cartography (EuroCarto 2015) was organized in Vienna (Austria) in November 2015. It had its aim to address and discuss contemporary developments and research in cartography. A selection of reviewed papers is provided in this special issue of the Journal. It is provided to reflect the current efforts in the realm of European contemporary cartography.
The triangle of data, technology and design in cartography
To further discuss research issues in cartography and to introduce the contents of this issue, it is pertinent to first examine the key influences on cartography.
Cartographic communication processes and maps (or map-like products) are the keys to enable humans to efficiently deal with all kinds of spatial data. To provide effective and efficient communication of spatial data, cartographic products should be user-centered and adapted to users’ needs, contexts, preferences and constraints. We argue that there are three primary aspects that must be considered when designing cartographic products: data; technology and design. For example, with data, cartographers need to identify which data are relevant to users’ needs and the contexts, which level of detail, which form of abstraction, which classification, etc. And, with respect to technology, cartographers need to investigate which interface technologies (e.g. paper, computer screen, smartphone and wearable device) are suitable, which interaction modalities and interactive functions to provide, or even which of the human senses to use (sight, hearing and touch). The final primary aspect is design, which has been considered as being the ‘most fundamental, challenging and creative aspect of the cartographic process’ (De Lucia, Citation1974, 83). It needs to identify which visualization techniques to use (2D, 3D, virtual reality and augmented reality), which styles to choose, which symbolization to apply, which graphical composition to employ, and so on.
Map design
Map design plays a fundamental role in cartography. Different techniques, methods and tools have been developed for map design, especially related to the aspects of symbolization, labeling, coloring, map projection and so on. Additionally, much empirical research has been undertaken in order to better understand the effectiveness and efficiency of different map designs. Recently, research on map design shifted focus from static maps to dynamic, interactive, personalized and mobile maps (Griffin & Fabrikant, Citation2012). In terms of empirical studies, many researchers have utilized physiological devices (e.g. electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and galvanic skin response (GSR)) and eye-tracking devices, combined with traditional empirical methods, to not only study how well a particular map design works, but also understand why, how and in what context the design works.
In this special issue, Schiewe investigates how to preserve attribute value differences of neighboring regions in classified choropleth maps. He proposes a new measure for data classification, which numerically describes how well value differences between neighboring polygons are preserved after classifying the original data. Several examinations proved the desired expressiveness of the index. Multimäki and her colleagues report on their empirical study of the applicability of bivariate color scales to animated maps. Their experiments showed that color design for animated bivariate maps is a key issue. Colors should depend on the nature of phenomena and on the nature of the relation between both variables to map. They urge future research to consider spatial coverage, geometrical complexity and the movement of the phenomena when designing bivariate animations. Lapaine and Francula extend map projection theory, and provide two definitions for map projection aspects. The first definition considers aspects as the position of a projection axis in relation to the axis of geographic parameterization of a sphere, while the second one defines aspects as the representation of the area in the central part of a map. These definitions have been carefully analyzed and compared.
Cartographic heritage and historical cartography
Cartographic heritage and history play important roles in contemporary cartography and GIScience, as they enable us to better understand foundational information about the discipline and to study more effectively the evolution of the natural and social aspects of the world (Cartwright & Ruas, Citation2015). In recent years, many methodologies, techniques and tools have been and are being developed to digitize, geo-reference, analyze and interpret historic maps and map-like products. The challenge here is on how to intersect the analysis of historical maps with their cultural contexts, considering the inaccuracy, uncertainty and incompleteness of these sources.
Geovisual analytics and spatial analysis
Geovisual analytics and spatial analysis are powerful tools for deriving pattern and knowledge from complex, voluminous and heterogeneous data, understanding complex phonemes, as well as decision-making. Recently, the increasing availability of data about the world and society (‘big data’) has triggered a much stronger research interest in geovisual analytics and spatial analysis, not only in the discipline of cartography and GIScience, but also in other disciplines like computer science. This is not surprising, as maps and map-like products are powerful abstraction and communication tools, and can help to convert these data into usable information that enable us to gain new knowledge about the world and society.
In this special issue, Andrienko and his colleagues study how to best predict expected values of some attribute of spatial objects based on the values of other attributes, including geographic positions. They propose a set of visualization techniques and interactive operations that supports exploration, evaluation, refinement and simplification of regression tree models. Graser and her colleagues develop prediction models to estimate vehicle speeds and their diurnal variation for road network links in urban street networks, using network centrality measures for closeness and betweenness. Their evaluation using a real-world dataset of 100 million individual speed measurements shows the advantage of considering these centrality measures.
Web mapping
Web maps have become the most common cartographic products that the general public encounters daily. Many Web mapping APIs (applications programming interfaces) like Google Maps APIs have been developed to enable normal users to implement their own Web maps. Recently there has been a trend toward more interactive and cartographically pleasing Web maps. Due to its powerful communication capacity, maps published on the Web are being increasingly used in different media (news services, magazines) for storytelling. And, in recent years there has also been a strong interest in personalizing Web maps, by tailoring Web maps to best suit an individual user’s characteristics, preferences and needs.
In this special issue, Kellenberger and his colleagues apply a user-centered design approach to assess and refine the interface of a Web geoportal. An evaluation undertaken using interviews and eye-tracking was implemented to study the usability of the interface of the geoportal. The evaluation results were then used to inform the improvement of the interface. The paper concludes with several recommendations for design of Web geoportals.
Location-based services
The rapid advances in mobile communication and the ubiquity of mobile devices have triggered a trend toward location-based services (LBS). This emerging field in cartography and GIScience brings many challenges to the discipline. For example, compared to users of traditional maps, LBS users are often the general public, and not expert map users. Their knowledge, abilities, preferences and needs are diverse. As well, LBS are often used in a mobile environment, which requires LBS to be context-aware, and adapt to the context in which the user operates. Additionally, in LBS, the devices to render maps or communicate spatial information are diverse, ranging from smartphones and tablets to wearable devices (smart watches and digital glasses) and public displays. All these changes in users, map use contexts and devices challenge the discipline of cartography to define and provide (improved or new) principles, rules and techniques that can be used to design usable LBS applications meeting users’ information needs (Huang, Citation2015).
In recognition of the crucial role of cartography and GIScience in LBS as well as the increasing research interests, the International Cartographic Association, at its 16th General Assembly in Brazil in 2015 established a Commission on LBS, to investigate issues related to this topic. It is therefore expected that more cartographic research will be done to advance and further develop LBS.
Summary
Maps have become more and more ubiquitous in many aspects of daily life. This trend and increasing demands made of maps (or map-like products) offer great opportunities to the cartography and GIScience community, but also bring many challenges to the discipline. This selection of papers exemplifies current research efforts in contemporary cartography in Europe being undertaken to address these challenges. We hope you find these papers informative, interesting and stimulating.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Georg Gartner http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2002-5339
Haosheng Huang http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8399-3607
References
- Cartwright, W., & Ruas, A. (2015). Mapping the world. International Journal of Cartography, 1(1), 1–4. doi: 10.1080/23729333.2015.1062608
- De Lucia, A. A. (1974). Design: The fundamental cartographic process. Proceedings of the Association of American Geographers, 6(1), 83–86.
- Griffin, A., & Fabrikant, S. (2012). More maps, more users, more devices means more cartographic challenges. The Cartographic Journal, 49(4), 298–301. doi: 10.1179/0008704112Z.00000000049
- Huang, H. (2015). Designing across human abilities and map use contexts. In ICC 2015 pre-conference workshop on “Envisioning the future of interactive cartography research”. Curitiba. Retrieved from http://cogvis.icaci.org/pdf/icc2015/Huang.pdf (retrieved on 13 May 2016).