Visualizing uncertainty for geographical information in the global terrorism database

Josh Jones; Remco Chang; Thomas Butkiewicz; William Ribarsky

doi:10.1117/12.777695

15 April 2008 Visualizing uncertainty for geographical information in the global terrorism database

Josh Jones, Remco Chang, Thomas Butkiewicz, William Ribarsky

Proceedings Volume 6983, Defense and Security 2008: Special Sessions on Food Safety, Visual Analytics, Resource Restricted Embedded and Sensor Networks, and 3D Imaging and Display; 69830E (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.777695
Event: SPIE Defense and Security Symposium, 2008, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

Presenting information on a geopolitical map can offer powerful insight into a problem by leveraging an individual's innate capacity to discover patterns and to use map-related cues to incorporate pre-existing knowledge. This mode of presentation is not without its flaws, however, as the act of placing information at specific coordinates can imply a false sense of the data's geo-spatial certainty. Traditional uncertainty visualization techniques, such as those that change primitive attributes or employ animation, can create large amounts of clutter or actively distract when visualizing geospatially uncertain events within large datasets. To effectively identify geo-spatial trends within the Global Terrorism Database of the START Center, we have developed a novel usage of squarified treemaps that maintains the strengths of traditional map-viewing but incorporates some measure of data verity.

Citation Download Citation

Josh Jones, Remco Chang, Thomas Butkiewicz, and William Ribarsky "Visualizing uncertainty for geographical information in the global terrorism database", Proc. SPIE 6983, Defense and Security 2008: Special Sessions on Food Safety, Visual Analytics, Resource Restricted Embedded and Sensor Networks, and 3D Imaging and Display, 69830E (15 April 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.777695

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