The development of a visualization tool to assist topographic map users

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The recognition and description of relief features from their contour patterns is recognized asthe main challenge in topographic map education. Conducting field exercises can solve thisproblem, but can be very time consuming. Modern technology, however, provides analternative teaching technique by creating depictions of terrain. Important issues raised by thisnew approach include questions such as what these depictions should look like and how itshould be presented to the user.Research presented here aims to address these issues by constructing design guidelines forterrain depiction. These design guidelines were derived from previous research and casestudies. The guidelines focussed on research about how people perceive differentrepresentations of terrain and how these representations should optimally be presented. Thedesign guidelines were constructed from research done in diverse fields such as cognitivepsychology, cartography and engineering. Results of this research revealed that in order todevelop an effective terrain visualization tool, it is crucial to incorporate different fields ofexpertise.The design guidelines were implemented with ArcView GIS and its 3D Analyst extension,which has the ability to display spatial data in three dimensions. The final product is calledTerrain Visualization Tool 1.1 (TVT) and was created by customizing an ArcView GIS project(TV BUILDER) and constructing a Website (TV VIEWER). TV BUILDER creates thevisualization data in the form of 20 web pages per topographic area and links them to TVVIEWER that serves as a platform to view the data. The design guidelines were implementedsuccessfully and show the advantages of using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) inrelated research.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University