Topographic maps, orthoimagery, vector thematic data convey various views of the real world. Geovisualization tools and geoportals widely provide these heterogeneous data to users. They bring users to co-visualize them in order to make suitable visualizations adapted to a task, a purpose or an application. Nevertheless, existing tools do not help to make satisfactory, elaborated and efficient visualizations. This paper presents a part of a PhD work in progress: conceptual and technical issues about proposing raster and vector co-visualization methods are detailed. The authors aim at proposing tools to explore a continuum of possible visualizations, between the photorealism of an orthoimage and the abstraction of a topographic map. Three methods to reach this objective are presented and discussed: patchwork between a map and an ortho-image, adaptive symbolization when overlaying data and fluid camouflage of a map in an ortho-image.

1. MIXING, BLENDING, MERGING OR SCRAMBLING
TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS AND ORTHOIMAGERY
IN GEOVISUALIZATION ?
Charlotte Hoarau, Sidonie Christophe, Sébastien Mustière
International Cartographic Conference (ICC) - Tuesday, August 27th 2013

2. CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE OF MY PHD

3. 4Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Aims of my PhD
Orthoimagery Topographic map

4. 5Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Aims of my PhD
How to combine them
to build in-between visualizations ?
Orthoimagery Topographic map

5. 6Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Continuum of « In-between » representations
build with the French Geoportail

6. 7Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Continuum of « In-between » representations
build with the French Geoportail

7. 8Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Continuum of « In-between » representations
build with the French Geoportail

8. 9Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Continuum of « In-between » representations
build with the French Geoportail

9. 10Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Continuum of « In-between » representations
build with the French Geoportail

10. 11Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Continuum of « In-between » representations
build with the French Geoportail

11. 12Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-Between »visualizations
Orthoimagery Topographic map

12. 13Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013

13. 14Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-between » representation
Orthoimagery
Topographic
Map

14. 15Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-between » representation
Orthoimagery
Topographic
Map

15. 16Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-between » representation
Orthoimagery
Topographic
Map

16. 17Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-between » representation
Orthoimagery
Topographic
Map

17. 18Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-between » representation
Orthoimagery
Topographic
Map

18. 19Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-between » representation
Orthoimagery
Topographic
Map

19. 20Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Browsing « In-between » representation
Orthoimagery
Topographic
Map
How to provide the more
useful information to the user?

20. PERSISTENT PROBLEMS IN CURRENT VISUALIZATIONS

21. 22Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Layer overlaid
Map design issue : Orthoimagery is dark and visually complex
Difficulty to symbolize vector layers in consistency with different backgrounds

22. 23Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Side-by-side co-visualizations
Swipe
Synchronized
visualization
Magnifier

23. 24Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Layer transparency [Hoarau, AutoCarto 2012]
No consensus in designing mixed visualizations by transparency
Using transparency leads to data scrambling

24. 25Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Toponym representation
© Géoportail, IGN France © Bing maps, Microsoft © Google maps
[Hoarau & Escrihuela 2013]

25. DESIGNING IN-BETWEEN REPRESENTATIONS

26. 27Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Map design issues

27. 28Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Map design issues
How to portray vector data
overlaid to an imagery background ?

28. CAMOUFLAGE METHOD
Making maps more realistic

29. 30Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Camouflage » method
Using landscape colors to make maps more realistic
[Christophe, Perret, Hoarau 2013]
[Patterson 2010]

30. 31Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Camouflage » method
Extracting colors from the orthoimagery
Re-injecting them in the map specification

31. 32Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Camouflage » method

32. 33Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Camouflage » method

33. 34Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Camouflage » method

34. 35Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Camouflage » method

35. PATCHWORK METHOD
Keeping the best of each visualization

36. 37Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Patchwork » method
Keeping the best parts of each initial visualizations
Master Student
[J. Gautier, 2012]

37. 38Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Patchwork » method
Keeping the best parts of each initial visualizations
Master Student
[J. Gautier, 2012]

38. 39Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Patchwork » method
Keeping the best parts of each initial visualizations
Master Student
[J. Gautier, 2012]

39. 40Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
« Patchwork » method

40. 41Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Camouflage by swiping

41. ADAPTIVE SYMBOLIZATION
Orthoimagery as a specific background layer

42. 43Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Adaptive symbolization
Different visual impact of background layers
 « Inversion » of conventional colors

43. 44Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Local adaptive symbolization
Wide variety of colors in an orthoimagery background
 Local adaptation of the color of the roads

44. 45Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Local adaptive symbolization
Wide variety of colors in an orthoimagery background
 Smart halo around the roads

45. 47Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
In-Between Steps

46. 48Charlotte Hoarau 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresde – 27/08/2013
Conclusion & Further Works
 Combining topographic maps and orthoimagery
 is a great opportunity…
 and a big challenge !
 And Now ?
Combine methods together in an automated
geovisualization platform
 Usability tests of resulting co-visualizations

47. « In-between » cartographic representations from the abstraction of
topographic maps to the realism of orthoimagery
Charlotte Hoarau @CartHoarau
This work is granted by the French National Research Agency,
within the project, with the reference ANR-12-CORD-0025.