Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Using KML for Thematic Mapping

The work is done! Today I could finally hand in my MSc GIS thesis: "Using KML for Thematic Mapping".

From the abstract:
The use of geobrowsers has increased considerably over the last few years. Thematic mapping has a long history in cartography, but the new geobrowsers (like Google Maps and Earth) tend not to focus on this aspect of geographical information representation. This paper examines how Keyhole Markup Language (KML) can be used for thematic mapping. KML is not targeted towards thematic mapping, but it is possible to use KML elements in ways that were probably not intended. Current possibilities for making proportional symbol maps, chart maps, choropleth maps and animated maps with KML will be presented. These experiments show that KML and geobrowsers offer great potential for thematic mapping, but that there are significant issues that need to be resolved.
Thanks to everyone who has given me valuable feedback and advice during these months!

Stay tuned!

10 comments:

  1. Unknown13 August 2008 at 06:49

    Congratulations, this would make for an interesting read, is it going to be posted online.

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  2. Anonymous13 August 2008 at 08:52

    Bjørn, with this message I want to congratulate you for the end of your thesis. From the beginning, in March, I have followed with great interest your thematic mapping approach, and I must say that I have learned a lot. Some of your advice and ideas I have applied to my SDI-stack interoperability project. Thanks and I hope you will continues publishing contents related with geoinformation.

    Marc Oller

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  3. Muad'Dib13 August 2008 at 10:13

    Congratulations Bjorn !

    I stay tuned !

    David

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  4. Bjørn Sandvik13 August 2008 at 16:46

    Thanks for your greetings!

    My thesis consists of two parts:

    1. A research paper, which we will try to publish in an academic journal.

    2. A technical report about the Thematic Mapping Engine. This report will eventually be released together with the TME source code.

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  5. Anonymous15 August 2008 at 18:52

    Woot!!! Congratulations!

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  6. Anonymous19 August 2008 at 06:10

    Congrats! I hope you're not sick of doing innovative Google Earth content because of the thesis work. We want to see more!

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  7. Anonymous12 September 2008 at 17:58

    It's been several weeks. Aren't you over your hangover yet? If not, at least give us a map of a drunkard's walk. :-)

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  8. Anonymous24 September 2008 at 11:04

    Congratulations. Well done! Give my regards to the lovely city of Edinburgh and its University. MSc in GIS rulezzz!

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  9. Anonymous24 September 2008 at 20:31

    Congratulations,

    I will stay tuned :
    Q1:In which journal will you publish the research paper?
    Q2:Under which license will you published the TME code?

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  10. Bjørn Sandvik26 September 2008 at 16:35

    Hi Kurt,

    Q1: The paper is not yet accepted by a journal.

    Q2: Probably GNU GPL license v3.

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