Borders: visualizing temporal changes in border disputes

Zhang, Jingxian

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/90820 Copy

Description

Title

Borders: visualizing temporal changes in border disputes

Author(s)

Zhang, Jingxian

Issue Date

2016-04-26

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Karahalios, Karrie G.

Department of Study

Computer Science

Discipline

Computer Science

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Border disputes
• Map
• Visualization
• Geographical time
• Contextual cues

Abstract

Disputes and changes of international borders have been an area of study for cartographers since long ago. Now, with online maps growing faster than printed maps, the task also transfers to online map creators. Companies like Google and Bing provide personalized maps where disputed international borders are in compliance with national laws based on the users' location. Knowing these disputes, the presentation of the differences of international borders between countries as well as on geographical time is an unexplored topic in visualization. In this paper, we propose a fluid visualization method on displaying temporal border changes. We build a tool, Borders, with such fluid visualization to present border events (border disputes and land delivery) and the history of them. In Borders, there are three views, namely general view, detail view, and timeline view, focusing on different aspects of the border events and supporting user exploration of the background knowledge. To provide better learning and comprehension of the border events, contextual cues of border events are integrated in the interface explaining the causes and evolution of events. Case studies show Borders has an advantage over other tools in the fluid visualization of border changes, smooth zooming and panning effect, and rich contextual cues.

Graduation Semester

2016-05

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/90820

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2016 Jingxian Zhang

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