新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情可视化进展与分析

新冠肺炎疫情期间,疫情数据成为民众关注的重点,涌现出了大量可视化图件,及时地向公众传达着疫情的数量信息和时空分布及变化,帮助大众快速了解疫情当前状况、推断发展趋势。本文从疫情数据可视化表达内容的维度出发,分析不同可视化的表达形式以及其对疫情数据的加工程度,结合示例把可视化分为“1阶”、“2阶”和“多阶”,并分析各自表达的数据类型、表达方式、设计特点和信息传递。同时,针对疫情可视化中的不足,探讨了数据统计中制图单元多级选择、数据分类中的极值处理问题,以及疫情可视化手段中不同颜色的内涵、质底法地图中区域面积和统计单元的影响、符号地图中符号压盖处理、热力图中比例尺的影响、统计图表和标注信息等在疫情可视化中的设计问题,指出疫情可视化设计中的视觉效果误用、设计过于复杂的误区,最后指出疫情信息可视化应具备讲故事的能力、问题针对性的特点,以图面简洁、高效信息传递为根本,为制图者合理设计图表和用户理性阅读疫情地图提供参考。

Visualization of the Epidemic Situation of COVID-19

The COVID-19 epidemic has extremely attracted our attentions and lots of maps and visualization charts were created to represent and disseminate the information about COVID-19 in time, which exactly became a key role for the public to acquire and understand the quantitative information and spatial-temporal information of COVID-19. The paper analyzed the dimension of data for COVID-19 and processing levels about them, then divided the COVID-19 visualization into three types, that is 1-order visualization, 2-order visualization and multi-order visualization for COVID-19, based on direct data or indirect data of COVID-19 with the corresponding visualization methods, characteristics and information transmission Shortcomings and weakness of visualization methods for COVID-19 were analyzed in details, from the aspects of multiple scale unit in spatial data statistics, max value dealing in data classification, also many key design points were described including color connotation in disease visualization, the influences of area/unit size in visualization,symbol overlapping, multiple-scale heat maps and labels in statistical tables. The paper indicated the visualization traps of COVID-19, such as misuse of visual effects and excessive visualization, and reasonable abilities of COVID-19 visualization including map-story narrative methods and visualization pertinence for specific problems should be considered sufficiently to provide the references for cartographers to design the maps and for readers to understand the maps.