Improving the Visualization of Geospatial Data Using Google's
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Improving the Visualization of Geospatial Data Using Google’s KML THESIS Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Ebenezer Attua Odoi Jr Graduate Program in Geodetic Science and Surveying The Ohio State University 2012 Master's Examination Committee: Prof. Alan Saalfeld, Advisor Prof. Ralph Von Frese, Committee Member Copyright by Ebenezer Attua Odoi Jr 2012 Abstract The Geospatial community continues to search for effective tools that produce visualizations of the nature of the earth and its features. With the aid of geobrowsers like Google Maps and Google Earth, geoscientists can now tell their ‘tales’ in ways that nonscientists can grasp and respond to in terms of awareness, policy formulation, application development and integration in ventures that usher human existence forward. This thesis explores diverse visualization techniques using Google’s Keyhole Markup Language (KML) that will benefit the viewing of geological data. In the process the thesis will show the potential of geobrowsers and KML as a unified programming language. Though there has been a proliferation of digital map viewers like geobrowsers being developed, thematic mapping capabilities, unfortunately, has been left out. The thesis will explore how KML can be used to achieve thematic mapping, though KML itself was not specifically designed for this application. Current possibilities for making proportional symbol maps, chart maps, choropleth maps and animated maps with KML will be presented. The innovation of the thesis is the conversion of a database table into a thematic map, using proportional symbols to represent the data. The visualization implementations developed in this research show that KML and geobrowsers offer great potential for thematic mapping, but there are significant issues that need to be resolved. ii This thesis will open a wider audience to implement visualization that they prefer to see via using their own datasets. iii Dedication This document is dedicated to my family. iv Acknowledgments I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my advisor, Professor Alan Saalfeld., who provided encouragement, guidance and constructive discussion throughout my research. Despite his tight schedule, Professor Saalfeld offered close supervision and critical comments that have greatly helped me develop an understanding of the subject as well as draft my thesis. I would also like to show my gratitude to Professor Ralph Von Frese for his participation as a committee member. Undoubtedly, I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents who have helped and supported me while studying in the U.S. Special thanks to all my colleagues and members of the GIS Laboratory at the Ohio State University. v Vita 1996 - 1998 ..................................................High School, Okuapemman Sec, Ghana 2000 - 2004 ..................................................Bsc. Geodetic Engineering, KNUST Ghana 2008 - 2012 ..................................................Graduate Student, Department of Civil & Environmental Eng. and Geodetic Science, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Geodetic Science and Surveying Track: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) vi Table of Contents Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita ..................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Spatial Data Representation ...................................................................................... 3 1.2 Thesis Layout ....................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Research Motivation and Proposed Method ........................................................ 5 Chapter 2: KML Background, Geobrowsers and Related Work ........................................ 7 2.1 KML ...................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Developer Environments for KML ........................................................................ 9 2.3 Using Geobrowsers for Thematic Mapping ........................................................ 12 vii 2.4 Related Work........................................................................................................ 14 Chapter 3: Data Description.............................................................................................. 17 3.1 Ohio Seis .............................................................................................................. 17 3.1 Ohio Seismic Data ................................................................................................ 18 3.2 United Nations World Dataset ............................................................................ 21 3.3 US Census, Population and Employment Dataset .............................................. 21 Chapter 4: KML Visualization and Thematic Mapping Techniques ................................ 22 4.1 XML Data Display .............................................................................................. 22 4.2 Auto Legend Implementation.............................................................................. 23 4.3 Implementing Dynamic KML Polygon Extrusion ............................................... 24 4.4 Raw Data Processing ............................................................................................ 27 4.5 Manipulating Camera Angle and Viewpoint ...................................................... 29 4.6 Referencing KML-to-KML ................................................................................. 31 4.7 Hotspot Image Placement................................................................................... 33 Chapter 5: KML Web-based Thematic Mapping ............................................................. 35 5.1 The Thematic Mapping Engine ........................................................................... 35 5.2 Web Interface Workflow .................................................................................... 38 5.3 Web Interface Showcase ...................................................................................... 40 Chapter 6: Conclusion and Future Work .......................................................................... 43 viii References ......................................................................................................................... 48 Appendix: Links to Programming Codes and Data .......................................................... 53 List of Figures Figure 1: Dr. John Snow’s map .......................................................................................... 4 Figure 2: KML hierarchy .................................................................................................... 9 Figure 3: Geobrowser selection (2012)............................................................................ 13 Figure 4: Ohio Seis online 2D mapping interface ............................................................ 18 Figure 5: Data Table ......................................................................................................... 20 Figure 6: Google API 2D Mapping with layers ................................................................ 22 Figure 7: Google Maps API implementation with XML data .......................................... 23 Figure 8: Legend overlay implementation ........................................................................ 24 Figure 9: Geometry for polygon extrusion implementation ............................................. 25 Figure 10: Dynamic polygon extrusion ............................................................................ 26 Figure 11: Extrusion and code snippet for implementation .............................................. 27 Figure 12: Creating KML code from Excel using HTML tags ........................................ 28 Figure 13: Ohio Seis ......................................................................................................... 28 Figure 14: Viewpoint axis in Google Earth ...................................................................... 29 Figure 15: Altering viewing camera orientation ............................................................... 30 Figure 16: KML Code snippet with camera parameters passed ....................................... 31 Figure 17: KML-to-KML referencing .............................................................................. 32 Figure 18: Identifying edges of interest ............................................................................ 33 ix Figure 19: Hotspot implementation .................................................................................