PRIMEMERIDIAN

WEB MAPS

2009-11-19T04:02:00.000-08:00

Classification of web maps

If one looks at the the mapping options, it is possible to distinquish between several methods that differ in terms of necessary technical skills from both the user's and provider's perspective.

The overview given here (see scheme below) can only be a snapshot, since development on the WWW is tremendously fast. This 'classification' is certainly not carved in stone, and one might easily find examples that would not fit thes categories, or define new categories or combinations.

The above classifiation gives an overview of current possibilities, based on how the map image is used. Click on the above classification to explore samples of the different types of web maps. The samples in the respective categories given are randomly chosen form the huge number of possibilities on the ever growing web, and not necessarily the most representative.

An important distinction is that between static and dynamic maps. Each of these categories is further subdivided into view-only and interactive maps. The most common map found on the WWW is the static view-only map. Static maps offer traditional map images, mostly stored as bitmaps. Often the sources for these maps are original cartographic products, which are scanned and places on the WWW.

OUTLOOK

2009-11-19T03:31:00.000-08:00

The book linked to this website was conceived as dividing naturally into four parts. The first two chapters set the scene, the next two consider the users' perspective, Chapters 5 to 7 concentrate on the principles and practice of putting maps on the Web and Chapters 8 to 12 illustrate web mapping by taking examples from fields where it is already important.
What is next? The next technological 'sub-revolution' (WAP), will bring the power of the Internet to Personal Digital Assistants, will increase the demand for web maps and at the same time force providers to present all internet data, including maps, much more efficiently than is done at present. Many recent and future developments can be followed at the site of the World Wide Web consortium. Another important initiative is the OpenGIS Consortium that is working towards a more open and flexible use of different GIS software and data. The OpenGIS consortium has remarked on the importance of the Web for dissemination of geospatial data but has also noticed its limitations. From this perspective the consortium started the Special Interest Group Web Mapping Testbed. Its aim is to create open geoprocessing web technology and to offer specifications as well.
New opportunities realised by developments sketched above will increase the demands. Examples are collaborative exploration and information visualisations, and visual geospatial data mining.

WEB MAP AND ROAD TRAPHICK

2009-11-19T03:29:00.000-08:00

Sites providing information on travelling by car are divided into two categories: Sites offering information on routing and traffic conditions. Routing facilities are offered as a tool under mapping engines like MapQuest. Most often routing facilities do not take into account current traffic conditions. Sites providing data on traffic conditions on the other hand offer time-sensitive information on primarily incidents and traffic density.
Routing facilities offer information on: route definition and description, estimated travel time and distance. Most often information is provided through maps accompanied by text and detail maps where start and destination points are given. These maps are in general not clickable. Sites providing information on traffic density and incidents deal with traffic speed, congestion, volume, construction, closures, accidents and weather conditions. Information on these aspects are provided through web cams, text and maps. This up-to-date information is gathered through a network of video cameras and traffic counters. The information is offered through separate maps or combined into one map. In the latter special techniques are applied to enable the user to turn layers on and off. Information on incidents and traffic density is mostly visualised through symbols that are either non-clickable, interactive or dynamic.
Taking into account user needs improvements encompass functionality, user interface and graphics. Routing facilities should provide more functionality like their CD-ROM counterparts, e.g. measuring distances and changing the look of maps. The interface should be transparent and not too complex. Concerning the graphics, information should be visualised more through maps than text. When considering 'traffic maps' special attention needs to go to the size of a symbol, better usage of visual variables, visual hierarchy, generalisation, legends and map structure. In the latter case most often too many aspects are combined into one map.

WEB MAP AND WEATHER

2009-11-19T03:28:00.000-08:00

With respect to weather maps, '…the Web has to offer something to almost everyone, and a lot to someone with knowledge of, or interest in, weather phenomena.' First, the main characteristics of the Web as a medium for dissemination and use of weather maps and television are compared. It seems that these media are tailored to different kinds of use. Main differences are found in the products disseminated, in access, spatial coverage and up-to-dateness. The Web offers maps, but also weather data, online visualisation tools and downloadable software to produce maps.
Next, the chapter gives an impression of the variety of maps. Four categories are distinguished. 'Weather maps in a narrow sense' are mainly based on observations at weather stations. They show conditions of the atmosphere in the immediate past or present, or forecast future conditions. 'Satellite image maps' and 'radar image maps' usually display recent or current conditions of the atmosphere, but sometimes also short term forecasts. Their sources and appearances differ. The category 'other weather and weather-related maps' refers to maps in archives, climatic maps and maps of specific phenomena, like uv forecasts, hurricanes and the ozone layer. For each category some background information and selected examples are provided. The selection illustrates that North-America is best endowed with weather information, while e.g. Africa is less well-provided. Many of the static examples offer at least some interaction. Dynamic maps are most common among satellite and radar image maps. Sophisticated examples, like VRML scenes, are found in the last category.
The chapters ends with some expectations. They are related to ongoing technological, professional and commercial developments. One such development is a trend towards customised weather provision on mobile phones. Finally, it is hoped that in the near future weather maps will be made accessible to a broader audience.

WEB AND ATLESES

2009-11-19T03:26:00.000-08:00

Atlases are probably the most well known cartographic products. Today one can distinguish among references atlases, school atlases, topographic atlases, national atlases and thematic atlases. Each type has its own structure designed to reach the atlas objectives. The first electronic atlases were just copies of paper editions, and are known as view-only atlases. Later options offered by the digital (WWW) environment include interaction and dynamics. This introduced interactive and analytical atlases. These atlases allow the user to decide on the map detail viewed and often also on its representation. It often includes an interactive relation between the map and other media via hyperlinks. Multimedia elements such as text, images and animations can be linked to the map. This environment is familiar to users of the WWW.
Most atlas types have WWW-versions. Of all atlases the national atlas is the most special. National atlases map all the particularities of a country. On the WWW these atlases can be part of the national geospatial data. By presenting a detailed view of the physical and social aspects of a country, the atlas as such is not only a mechanism to inform, but could be part of the geospatial WWW search engine - another entrance to the geospatial data organised via a clearinghouse. Geospatial data providers participating in a clearinghouse are also the data sources for a national atlas. In respect to the National Atlas, the idea is that each organisation makes up-to-date data available at a certain level of aggregation.

WEB MAPS AND TOURISTS

2009-11-19T03:25:00.000-08:00

Among the great advantages of the WWW in the tourism business is that it enables the customer to have much easier direct access to a very large amount of up-to-date information and to do the reservations from home. Unless users have access to Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), they have to collect information before departure, or else use 'cybercafes' at their destination. There is great variety in the use of maps on tourist websites - some sites from countries where tourism is a major source of income still make little use of maps, or at the most very simple, static maps. Scanned paper maps, despite their disadvantages, are still widely used. There are signs, however, that more tourist organisations are recognising the usefulness of maps on the Web and particularly their interactive aspects. On a well-developed site, the user can, for example, plan a route, call up symbols on the map for places of interest and accommodation addresses, view related photographs, go to related sites, book travel and accommodation. The typically small map format is a problem that has to be met by panning and zooming techniques. Some tourist map sites make special provision for downloading and printing high quality maps using the PDF format, for example. In the future we can expect more 'virtual reality tours' to be incorporated into tourist websites.

NATIONAL MAPPING ORG

2009-11-19T03:23:00.000-08:00

The leading role of National Mapping Organisations (NMOs) is becoming less obvious as a result of unavoidable changes in their environment. One aspect of these changes is the growing interest in connecting and sharing distributed databases by means of a geospatial data infrastructure (GDI). Data users with access to this infrastructure - presumably via the World Wide Web - will be able to compare the products of various data producers, for instance by cost or quality. This implies that the NMO core data are no longer the only authority in this area. Still, NMOs have an opportunity to anticipate these changes and to play an initiating role in setting up a clearinghouse for a country's base data.
The chapter presents an exploratory inventory, by examining whether NMOs maintain a homepage on the WWW at all and, if present, by evaluating the topics presented on the web site. This inventory is compared with today's interactive and dynamic cartographic options the WWW has to offer. NMOs can use web maps as an index to both paper and digital map products; as the result of search actions for geographical objects, for instance with the help of an interactive gazetteer; as a guide to the geoinformation infrastructure; or, for instance, as promotion of services for customised data supply.
Currently, many NMOs in Europe, America, Southeast Asia and Oceania appear to be active on the WWW to some extent. Obviously, this map resembles a pattern equal to the global distribution of Internet users. From the web sites explored it is obvious that the web maps in use are all without exception either 'static, view only' or 'static, interactive'. Dynamic maps are hardly present - and if they are, then they serve demonstration purposes only.

WEB MAP DESGIN

2009-11-19T03:21:00.000-08:00

esigning Web maps is a challenging task. The cartographer must consider limitations, opportunities and characteristics of the Web. Combining functionality with a high level of visual attraction and a design that suits the medium and attract the user should be the challenge for the cartographer. Cartographers have little or no control on user actions and system configurations. File sizes must be small to speed up downloading. This leads to smaller maps with simpler designs than might be preferred. Scaling and zooming options can alleviate the problem of small format. The visual hierarchy of components of the map content deserves more attention compared to maps in general and depends upon the definition of the intended map use. Special attention is given to web-oriented application of the graphic variables and their variations such as shadow and transparency. Specific attention is paid to colour. Next to its cartographic visualisation application, colour can be applied in a more artistic way. Colour choice is however limited depending on the file format and size used to send the map over the Web and on the user's system configuration. Also the use of web (map) objects and interactive 'gadgets' such as pull-down menus, mouse-over events, hotspots etc. are described. Web map reading time is assumed to be short but can be (partly) anticipated by applying map symbols that are self-explanatory. In case a legend is needed one could apply non-interactive legends, pop-up legends and interactive control-panel legends to explain the symbols. Text on maps cannot be omitted but their impact on Web maps is considerable. The cartographer must take into account unwanted changes at the user's side, such as font replacement, text flow, letter spacing and leading to guarantee readability and legibility. As a final design step, the finished map should be tested on expected minimum user configurations and improved based upon user feedback.

MAPS PUBLISHING ON THE WEB

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The World Wide Web is a relatively new means of publishing maps and although nowadays millions of people use it every day, not many of those users know how it actually works. Many of them, quite sensibly, do not really care. But for the those interested in publishing information on the Web, some basic knowledge about the technical background of the Web can be helpful in understanding the different mapping possibilities available.
In this chapter, a short overview is given of how the World Wide Web sprouted from the Internet and of the file formats and communication protocols that are its building blocks. It will become clear how the basic set-up allows the publication only of static maps with very limited interactivity and how the possibilities can be broadened by adding server-side applications or client-side plugins and applications such as Java applets or scripts. ESRI's ArcView Internet Map Server will be used as an example of how all these techniques can be combined to offer mapping and GIS functionality on the Web.

2009-11-19T03:18:00.000-08:00

Maps are there to answer questions. They should offer solutions to questions like "Where can I find…?", "How do I get to…?", "What feature can be found at…?", or "Where else do I find that feature?" Maps have to be well designed to be able indeed to answer questions like those above. If the translation from data to graphics is successful the resulting maps are the most efficient and effective means of transferring geospatial information. The map user can locate geographic objects, while the shape and colour of signs and symbols representing the objects inform him about their characteristics. They reveal spatial relations and patterns, and offer the user insight in and an overview of the distribution of particular phenomena.
Before maps can be designed the cartographer should get a feel for the nature of the information, since this determines the graphic options. This is done via cartographic information analysis. Based on this knowledge the cartographer can choose the correct symbols to represent the information in the map. The cartographer has a whole toolbox of visual variables available to match symbols to the nature of the data. These are applied according to the cartographic rules and guidelines.
Maps constructed using these basic cartographic guidelines are not necessarily appealing maps. Although well constructed, they could still look sterile. The design aspects required to create appealing maps also have to be included in the visualisation process. Appealing in a communicative sense does not only mean having nice colours. One of the keywords here is contrast. Contrast will increase the communicative role of the map since it will create a kind of hierarchy in the map contents, assuming that not all information is of equal importance. The chapter ends with some details on mapping of the third dimension and time.

USERS ON THE WEB

2009-11-19T03:17:00.000-08:00

This chapter is written from the perspective of the web map user as a person. It starts with a description of the profile of the users ("Who are they?"). It appears that the use of the Internet is democratising rapidly now and, therefore, the user profile is becoming more and more diversified. At the same time, the number of users of the Internet and people with access to the WWW is growing exponentially, although the number of Internet users expresssed as a percentage of the total population of the world is still rather small. Finally, the first section also deals with the uneven global diffusion of the use of the Internet.
The second section presents some quantitative data on the use of maps on the Web. Although it is difficult to find precise data, it is sure that, in quantitative terms, the Web now has become the major medium for the dissemination of maps to their users, with MapQuest being the number one web map site in the world.
Economic aspects of web cartography are discussed from the perspective of the user under the headings: for free or for fee?; privacy and security; and copyrights. In this section methods of paying for web maps and geodata are presented as well.
The last paragraph of this chapter summarises some of the problems and limitations web map users are confronted with in practice. Problems mentioned are, for instance, the quality of the design of web maps, different output conditions and websites that are not kept up-to-date regularly. Besides, there are quite some limitations to the accessibility.
They are listed under the headings: finding web maps and geodata; language; accessibility for everyone?; web maps and geodata for fee; Internet access; and speed of data transfer.

2009-11-19T03:13:00.001-08:00

This chapter (as well as the next) is written from the perspective of the WWW user who is looking for answers to geographical questions. It deals with aspects of processes of using maps on the Web, whereas Chapter 4 is written from the perspective of the user as a person.
Chapter 3 starts with presenting the real benefits for the user of the WWW medium for the dissemination of geospatial data by means of maps, compared to, for instance, a CD-ROM. These benefits are summarised under two main headings: accessibility and actuality. A next section provides examples of different modes of using web maps, as a further deepening of the basic classification of web maps already presented in Chapter 1. The modes of using web maps -illustrated by various examples- are related to different map use goals, as positioned in the so-called "map use cube". It is indicated what kind of web map use research is required, so as to be able to develop more effective cartographic tools to better serve the needs of the users.
In a separate paragraph attention is paid to the process of finding and retrieving maps and geodata on the overwhelming WWW. Some possible tools are discussed, like (meta) search engines, subject directories, hybrid search tools, subject guides and specialised databases. A final section deals with the roles web maps may play in geospatial data infrastructures and their clearing houses. First of all, the geodata retrieved may come to the user in web map form. But web maps may also be used as part of the searching mechanism and as preview of the geospatial data to be downloaded.

TRENDS

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Web cartography can be considered a trend in cartography. However there are other recent trends that affect cartography and the way web cartography is developing. These have to do with the impact of visualisation and the need for interactivity and dynamics as well as the widespread use of geographical information systems resulting in many more maps being produced by many more people. In the context of geospatial data handling, the cartographic visualisation process is considered to be the translation or conversion of geospatial data from a database into map-like products. This process is guided by the saying "How do I say what to whom, and is it effective?"
The above developments have given the word visualisation an enhanced meaning. According to the dictionary, it means 'make visible' and it can be argued that this has always been the business of cartographers. However, progress in other disciplines has linked the word to more specific ways in which modern computer technology can facilitate the process of 'making visible' in real time. This results in visualisation for presentation and exploration. Presentation fits into the traditional realm of cartography, where the cartographer works on known geospatial data and creates communicative maps. These maps are often created for multiple uses. Exploration, however, often involves a discipline expert creating maps while dealing with unknown data. These maps are generally for a single purpose, expedient in the expert's attempt to solve a problem. While dealing with the data, the expert should be able to rely on cartographic expertise, provided by the software or some other means.
In the past cartography played an important role in the exploration of the world. Maps were used to chart unknown territories. A new phase in mapping the unknown has recently started. This does not refer to the cartographic or geographic exploration discussed in the previous paragraph. It deals with the mapping of cyberspace.

WEB CARTOGRAPHY

2009-11-19T03:05:00.000-08:00

The World Wide Web (WWW) is the most recent new medium to present and disseminate geospatial data. In this process the map plays a key role, and has multiple functions. Maps can play the traditional role of providing insight into geospatial patterns and relations. Under these circumstances maps are used as they would in e.g. an atlas or newspaper to present the structure of a city or the location of the latest earthquakes. However, because of the nature of the WWW the map can also function as an interface or index to additional information. Geographic locations on the map can be linked to for instance photographs, text, sound or other maps (multimedia). Maps can also be used to preview geospatial data products to be acquired, when it comes to disseminating the data.
The purpose of this book is to provide information on the new opportunities and challenges offered by the WWW for cartography and related geosciences. It describes the developments, changes and prospects of the mapping discipline in the framework of the WWW. In this framework a web map classification scheme is proposed. It distinguishes between static and dynamic web maps. Each of these categories is further subdivided into view-only and interactive maps. The most common map found on the WWW is the static view-only map. Often the sources for these web maps are original cartographic products, which are scanned and put as bitmaps on the WWW. Static maps can also be interactive. These are the so-called 'clickable' maps. The map can function as an interface to other data. Alternatively it could allow the user to define the contents of the web map by switching layers off or on. The WWW has several options to display dynamic processes via animations. The so-called animated GIF can be seen as the view-only version of the dynamic maps. Interactive dynamics can be created by Java, JavaScript or via virtual environments in VRML or QuicktimeVR.