Tech Reports

Tech Report kmi-01-19 Abstract

Visualisation Of Entity Distribution In Very Large Scale Spatial And Geographic Information Systems
Techreport ID: kmi-01-19
Date: 2001
Author(s): Jiri Komzak

The aim of this paper is to summarise entity distribution visualisation problems in very large-scale spatial and geographic information systems. The motivation for this theme arises from the challenge of visualising the geographic and logical distribution of many tens of thousands of distance-learning students at the UK's Open University. At the beginning, the paper describes the algorithms and data structures used by current geographic and spatial information systems. These include visualisation and mapping techniques, user interface problems, clustering analysis, and the approach to existing data structures and network services. Several existing systems are mentioned as examples. In the second part of the paper, suggested approaches and improvements are discussed. These should provide new possibilities, particularly with respect to the scalability of the system when working with very large numbers of entities.