INVISIP : Metadata-based Information Visualization Techniques to Access Geodata Archives and to Support the Site Planning Process

Abstract

Complex application examples or scenarios such as site planning need a lot of information, especially spatially referenced data (studies have shown that the amount of spatial information/geodata is 80-85% relating to all new data produced by the actual information society) in order to find a best place for a new building or an industrial area and to solve individual planning tasks such as generating ecological, environmental or traffic reports. Recent initiatives to geospatial data archives or any other necessary information for the site planning process offer access to a wealth of distributed data covered by the widespread information spectrum of different geodata disciplines (e.g. environmental data, geologic data, cadastral data, remote sensing data or socio-demographic data), but offer only basic levels of interactivity and user assistance. The EU funded project INVISIP (Information Visualization for Site Planning) addresses this lack of usability and aims to develop new visualizations to support all involved parties within the different phases of the multi-step site planning process. This paper introduces the GeoCrystal and the SuperTable + Scatterplot as new information visualization techniques (based on metadata and metaphors) to support accessing geospatial data archives and site planning in general.