Applications of Distortion-Oriented Presentation Techniques in GIS

The internal components of a typical Geographic Information System (GIS) have evolved dramatically in recent years. However, the man-machine interface has remained relatively unchanged and is now a limiting factor in performance and usability. Distortion-oriented presentation techniques employ transformations which emphasize regions and features of interest while suppressing, yet retaining, global detail. They have been applied successfully in a variety of application domains to combat problems of visual information overload and to enhance user benefits from graphically presented information. In this paper the field of distortion-oriented presentation techniques is surveyed briefly and two areas in which these techniques could benefit GIS, schema design and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), are examined in greater detail. Preliminary results from a long-term project are reported.

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