Visual Access to Data Quality in Geographic Information Systems

Abstract

Visualization encompasses the display of quantities or qualities of visible or invisible phenomena through the combined use of points, lines, a coordinate system, numbers, symbols, words, shading, color, and animation. The objectives of visualization are to provoke insights and expand comprehension of information by revealing complex relationships among data. Geographical information is visualized in the form of maps. Recent concern over the accuracy and reliability of spatial information in geographic information systems has raised an interest in applying visualization tools to comprehend and communicate the reliability of GIS information and products. This paper develops design requirements for visualization of spatial data quality based on characterizations of quality, a range of quality assessment tasks, and different contexts under which data quality might be investigated.