University of Twente Student Theses
Base maps for visualizing neogeography data
Amukwaya, Andreas Ilyo (2013) Base maps for visualizing neogeography data.
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| Abstract: | Online base maps are readily and freely available for users to overlay their own neogeography data and create or produce neogeography maps. However, these online base maps were not created specifically for the purpose of neogeography mapping. For a good base map to be created some criteria need to be taken into consideration, such as, the base map should be as simple as possible, should contain only basic layers that help users to localize and that emphasize the overlaid neogeography data, and base map should present a clear visual hierarchy between base layers and the overlaid neogeography theme. Since these base maps were not produced with those criteria in mind, they usually suffer from design (lack of visual hierarchy), content (too much information than needed) and generalization problems. A created inventory for some of the available neogeography maps led to the discovery that Google Maps is the most used base map for neogeography maps. Therefore, an investigation was carried out to find the possibility of adjusting Google Maps and fit it to the purposes of neogeography maps and in accordance with the mentioned criteria. Some tools or solutions such as Google Maps Styled Maps Wizard and Google Maps Colorizr were discovered and used in the adjustment to try and minimize the said problems. A usability test was conducted on the original and adjusted Google Maps to compare their effectiveness, efficiency and usability. The results from the usability test show that most users find it easier to answer posed questions with adjusted Google Maps base maps than with non-adjusted Google Maps base maps. Keywords: Base map, online base map, Google Maps, neogeography map. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | ITC: Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation |
| Programme: | Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation MSc (75014) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/93813 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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