Abstract
In this paper we are proposing a cognitively adequate and perceptually salient spatialization workflow to efficiently analyze and effectively visualize the intellectual development of cartographic knowledge since the turn of the 21st century, as documented by published submissions to the International Cartographic Association’s bi-annual Cartographic Conference 1999-2009. We explore the salient cartographic research themes and threads in the last ten years by means of a novel network spatialization method, including semantic and cartographic generalization. As the conference location itself has also moved across the globe during this period, we investigate if and how geography might have had an influenced on the evolving research themes and threads. Our preliminary results suggest that conference themes have indeed changed over the years in terms of submission magnitude, and location might have played a role in the relative distribution of themes. We additionally validate the results of our proposed approach with a second spatialization procedure, as spatialization outcomes indeed need to be cross-checked with various methods to assure stable, data-driven, and not method driven patterns.
Fabrikant, Sara I