A comparison of usefulness of 2D and 3D representations of urban planning

Very little existing literature has addressed the issues of the perceived usefulness of 3D visualizations over 2D and the use of cartographic shadow representations in the planning community. Urban planning has moved toward a 3D, geographic-information-system-centric, and functional decision support framework. This study aims to examine the preferences of urban planning professionals with respect to 2D and 3D visualizations in a case study. The authors built a 3D representation of a proposed building along with the existing urban environment in Queenstown, New Zealand and conducted a usefulness test through a survey and interview. Based on the survey, the study evaluated the degree of task utility perceived in each visualization method, the effect on the mental image, and shadow representation preferences. The findings support the literature that the benefits of using a 2D or 3D model are closely related to the types of planning tasks undertaken. The findings also reveal a complex view of planning activities, suggesting that planners themselves cannot be treated as a single group for research purposes.     

A framework to enhance semantic flexibility for analysis of distributed phenomena

While some geographic phenomena hold uniform properties, such as land‐use zones, many geographic phenomena are distributed such that their properties vary across an extended area. While such distributed phenomena are best represented as continuous surfaces, individual objects (or features) often emerge among clusters of high or low values in a field. For example, areas of relatively high elevation may be viewed as hills, while flat low‐lying areas are perceived as plains in a terrain. A comprehensive spatial analysis of distributed phenomena should examine both the spatial variance of its attribute surfaces and the characteristics of individual objects embedded in the field. An immediate research challenge to meet such spatial analysis needs is that these emerging features often have vague boundaries that vary according to the use and the user. The nature, and even existence, of these objects depend upon the range of values, or thresholds, used to define them. We propose a representation framework that takes a dual raster‐vector approach to capture both field‐ and object‐like characteristics of distributed phenomena and maintain multiple representations of embedded features delineated by boundaries that are likely to be relevant for the expected uses of the data. We demonstrate how boundaries influence the analysis and understanding of spatiotemporal characteristics of distributed phenomena. Using precipitation as a proof of concept, we show how the proposed framework enhances semantic flexibility in spatiotemporal query and analysis of distributed phenomena in geographic information systems.     

Street‐based topological representations and analyses for predicting traffic flow in GIS

It is well received in the space syntax community that traffic flow is significantly correlated to a morphological property of streets, which are represented by axial lines, forming a so called axial map. The correlation co‐efficient (R ²) approaches 0.8 and even a higher value according to the space syntax literature. In this paper, we study the same issue using the Hong Kong street network and the Hong Kong Annual Average Daily Traffic datasets, and find surprisingly that street‐based topological representations (or street–street topologies) tend to be better representations than the axial map. In other words, vehicle flow is correlated to a morphological property of streets better than that of axial lines. Based on the finding, we suggest the street‐based topological representations as an alternative GIS representation, and the topological analyses as a new analytical means for geographic knowledge discovery.     

An SVG-based method to support spatial analysis in XML/GML/SVG-based WebGIS

XML/GML/SVG-based approaches are promising for building Web-based geographic information systems (WebGIS). However, current XML/GML/SVG-based WebGISs are lacking in spatial analysis. Some of them are designed for web mapping only. Others adopt a server-side solution for spatial analysis, which suffers from the ‘bottleneck’ problem and results in a high network transmission load. Load-balancing spatial analysis between server side and browser side can be used to solve the above problems. This article focuses on one of the key building blocks of load-balancing spatial analysis, that is, SVG-based spatial analysis which enables spatial querying and analysis directly on SVG (on the browser side). After analyzing the workflow of spatial analysis, we identify and focus on two key issues in providing spatial analysis on SVG: SVG-based spatial information representation and SVG-based spatial extended structured query language (SSESQL). For the first issue, a theoretical foundation is set up to develop an SVG-based spatial information representation model. Some spatial operators are designed and integrated into an SSESQL to support spatial querying on SVG. Finally, we design and implement two case studies. The results of these case studies show that the proposed method is feasible and operable in supporting spatial analysis directly on SVG on the browser side. The proposed method can be easily incorporated with some existing methods (e.g., GML-based spatial analysis on the server side) to provide load-balancing spatial analysis (load balancing between server side and browser side) in XML/GML/SVG-based WebGIS. As a result, users can access high-performance spatial analysis simply via a web browser (such as Internet Explorer and Firefox).     

Introductory Human Geography Textbook Representations of Africa

This article analyzes representations of Africa found in ten introductory human geography textbooks. Recent research in communications studies cites the common tendencies of the U.S. media to represent Africa in rhetorical tropes of disaster that are ahistorical and rife with geographical abstraction and misrepresentation. The main textbooks in geography tend to avoid ahistorical and geographical simplification, yet they often repeat stereotypes and misleading media imagery concerning Africa. A broad body of works by geographers in the last decade that offers critical scholarly analysis of both African crises and African everyday life is generally underrepresented in the discipline's introductory textbooks, although some encouraging exceptions do exist to that generalization. It is suggested that geographers need to critically re-examine the ways in which African examples are utilized to teach fundamentals of human geography.     

Rethinking Precolonial Plant Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America

The indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America are widely believed to have been true “hunter-fisher-gatherers,” lacking plant cultivation of any kind. This depiction of the region's indigenous inhabitants emerged within early colonial accounts and was perpetuated within the literatures of geography, anthropology, and archaeology. Still, there is ample evidence of plant cultivation available from archival, archaeological, and ethnographic sources. In particular, the peoples of coastal British Columbia created large gardens of edible estuarine plants, using sophisticated indigenous technologies. The oversight of these practices in written representations of the region reveals consistent patterns of bias, emanating from the agendas of colonial agents and early academics alike. In turn, this bias has undermined aboriginal traditions of cultivation and indigenous land claims.     

明、清、民国时期地图要素视觉表达方法分析

自明代杰出的地图学家罗洪先（1504-1564年）所编制的《广舆图》（1541年）和利玛窦带来西方精确地图测绘技术开始,中国的地图制图技术已经迈入了近代地图学的门槛,因此,明-清-民国是中国近代地图学从雏形走向成熟的完整阶段^[1]。随着现代地图的应用与发展广泛、深入,抽象的概括型地图符号及普通的二维平面地图已不能满足读图者的需求,制图者开始探索虚拟现实、三维地图等表达方法,这与中国近代传统制图的写景法有异曲同工之处。所以,对中国近代地图制图技术及表现方法的研究,对于现代地图学的发展具有重要作用。本文通过阅读大量的中国近代（即明、清、民国时期）的地图资料,查阅前人的研究资料,总结和提炼了中国明、清、民国3个不同时期地图制图的技术,分别阐述了3个时期地图要素、表示方法及其制图技术的发展。     

中国明、清时期黄河和京杭大运河地图的特征与价值

黄河是中华民族的母亲河,而京杭大运河则担负着河运的重要职责,其重要性决定了古代关于黄运工程及其治理的地图数量繁多。本文旨在通过对大量明、清时期黄河、京杭大运河水利地图的梳理,对明、清时期水利地图的载体形式、表现形式和绘制特点进行剖析,并探讨其在地理学、地图学、水利学方面的应用价值和研究价值。明、清时期的黄河、京杭大运河地图,从载体形式来分,主要分为水利典籍（志书、图说）附图和绘本舆图2类：前者多为示意性地图,画法比较简单,只起到辅助说明水利典籍的作用;后者多采用山水形象画法绘制,多为长卷展开景物再现式地图,其主要特点是形象直观。其采用的“对景法”地图表现形式（即所绘黄河、京杭大运河两岸各类地物要素均朝向河流中心线）,容易引起读者的视觉共鸣,轻松构筑被描画事物的整体画面。从表现形式和绘制特点来看,明、清时期还出现了另外2类地图：计里画方类地图和经纬度实测地图,但由于其实用性和艺术性不如山水形象画法地图,因此,这2类地图在明、清并没有得到广泛普及。但从功能和价值而言,不论是长卷展开式古地图、计里画方类古地图,还是经纬度实测地图,对于古地图史、历史地理学、古代水利研究,对如今的地图、水利、地理学研究等,都是不可多得的历史瑰宝。     

求解扩展的Sylvester共轭矩阵方程

研究扩展Sylvester共轭矩阵方程及更一般形式复矩阵方程的解,利用复矩阵的实形式方法得到求解方程的迭代算法.数值例子展示了该算法的有效性.