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Self-calibrating eye tracker using imagesaliency Självkalibrerande ögonspårare medhjälp av image saliency

Frågan om digitala detaljplaner är mer relevant än någonsin i Sverige efter nya direktiv från svenska myndigheter som ålägger kommunerna att digitalisera delar av sina planarkiv. Att digitalisera redan existerande detaljplaner är en tidskrävande process, vilket innebär att effektiva automatiserade metoder kan bli värdefulla för att kunna spara tid. Men för att att veta om en metod kan sägas vara effektiv behöver den först utvärderas. Denna studie syftar till att utvärdera en nyligen presenterad metod för automatiserad digitalisering av detaljplaner, och är den första kvantitativa undersökningen av metoden. De frågeställningar som undersöks är huruvida metoden är effektiv och om den har några svagheter. Dessutom analyseras resultatet utifrån ett antal egenskaper hos detaljplanerna, för att se om dessa egenskaper påverkar kvalitén. Eftersom kvalitén på digitala detaljplaner inte har studerats systematiskt i något tidigare sammanhang har ett av studiens bidrag också varit att ta fram ett ramverk för hur detta kan mätas och bedömas. Metoden består av totalt tre steg och de två första stegen som innefattar automatiserad georeferering samt automatiserad vektorisering har applicerats på totalt 75 detaljplaner. En kvantitativ utvärdering av metodens två första steg har sedan genomförts med hjälp av jämförelsedata i form av manuellt digitaliserade detaljplaner. Studien visar att ungefär 70% av detaljplanerna i testen kunde georefereras, och 44% av bestämmelseytorna kunde vektoriseras med hjälp av metoden. Resultaten har dock stor spridning i fråga om kvalitét, med felvärden på 5 meter för de mest lyckade resultaten och över 100 meter för de sämsta. Svagheterna som identifierades för metoden handlar främst om att georefereringsprocessen krävde omfattande manuell granskning och att den var begränsad till detaljplaner med plankarta i fyrfärg. Dessutom hade de vektorer som genererades ingen självklar tillhörighet till något bestämmelseområde. Gällande vilka egenskaper som påverkade resultatet fann studien att det framför allt var en liten detaljplanearea som hade ett negativt inflytande. De huvudsakliga slutsatserna från studien var att metoden till viss del kunde anses digitalisera detaljplanerna på ett effektivt sätt, och att utvärderingsmetoden kan byggas vidare på i framtida studier genom att ta hänsyn till ytterligare faktorer såsom form på- och avstånd mellan polygonerna. With new directives from Swedish authorities imposing municipalities to digitize sections of their plan archives, the question of digital detailed plans is becoming more relevant than ever in Sweden. Digitizing already existing detailed plans is time consuming, so effective automated digitizing methods will be valuable to save time in this process. However, in order to know if a method is effective it first has to be evaluated. This study aims at evaluating a recently introduced method for automated digitizing of detailed plans, and it is the first one evaluating this method in a quantitative manner. The questions to be answered within the study is whether the implemented method is effective and if it has any weaknesses. Additionally, whether a number of defining characteristics of the detailed plan maps influence the quality of the result. As the quality of digitized detailed plans have not been subjected to systematic evaluation before, a novel contribution of this study is also suggesting a framework for how this can be measured and evaluated. The method consists of 3 steps and the first 2 steps, namely automated georeferencing and automated vectorization, have been performed on a set of 75 detailed plans. Using manually digitized versions of the same detailed plans as ground truth, the results of these two steps have been compared and evaluated using a set of quantitative measures. Findings from this study have shown that about 70% of the detailed plans tested can be georeferenced, and 44% of relevant areas in the plan maps can be vectorized using the method. However, the results have displayed a significant disparity of quality, with error values for georeferencing ranging between under 5 meter for the best results and over 100 meters for the worst. The weaknesses that have been identified for the method are mainly that the georeferencing procedure requires extensive manual supervision, that the vectorization produces polygons of ambiguous belonging, and that the method is limited to multicolor detailed plans. Furthermore, a small plan area has been identified as the most influential factor for a low quality result. Main conclusions of this study have been that the method can be considered effective for digitizing detailed plans to some extent. Additionally, the method for evaluating the quality of digitizing could be expanded by reviewing more factors such as shape and gaps between polygons in future work.

As maps are widely used, circulated, and recognised, they have consequences for how people view and understand the world. They mediate political meaning-making and frame the conditions for political alternatives to emerge or to be silenced. In contrast to dominant approaches to the study of the power of maps that consider their political influence on the basis of the intentions of the map-maker, this thesis emphasises the constitutive power of maps and the visual representations prevalent within them. Moreover, it attempts to further conversations between the fields of visual politics and critical cartography by investigating the power of maps in international politics. It does so by developing three theoretical assumptions about the constitutive power effects of maps: cartographic truth-claiming, cartographic naturalisation, and cartographic materialisation. To illustrate and examine these effects, a two-step analytical framework for interpreting and deconstructing maps is presented and applied to the study of three contemporary maps: a world map using the Web Mercator projection, a map of the changes in Arctic sea ice, and a set of two maps depicting the oil and gas potentials in the Arctic. The analysis focuses on the ways in which maps limit and enable certain conceptualisations of ‘the Arctic’ and politics within the region. The thesis concludes by contending that maps perform the political by shaping generally held assumptions about the ‘reality’ of the Arctic, both in terms of its ‘challenges’ and ‘opportunities’, and therefore serving particular interests as well as giving rise to ideas and visions about the region’s future.

MapCloud is a solution combing four different Software Oriented Architecture (SOA) methods to obtain a reliable and efficient delivery method for digital map data, more precisely 3D map data.Mapping software use large amount of data including mapping data, aerial imagery and 3D models. Pre-processing data is a cumbersome task due the sheer amount of data that needs to be handled. The challenge is also on the other end, when the data is accessed in real-time. This process needs to be fast and reliable. This theses is done at Agency9. Agency9 is a Swedish company offering mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) software and services worldwide.Agency9’s current system and workflow is limited to a set of single high performing servers for processing and preparation. In the workflow there are also manual steps that constitute a bottleneck for administration due to the need of copying huge amounts of data. From a design standpoint MapCloud overcomes these shortcomings. The workflow of MapCloud utilizes parallel data processing for preparation and distributed, resilient, access method with high-throughput for web-centric map applications. Validerat; 20150625 (global_studentproject_submitter)

The overall purpose of this thesis is to study, in relation to geography education and with a historical perspective, the challenges of knowing and understanding the world. The cases are all from Sweden. In the first paper, educational ideas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are studied, and the results indicate that some of the previously criticised educational ideas that were perceived as resulting from the ideas of nineteenth century regional geography in fact can be observed in earlier centuries and were criticised during the nineteenth century. In the second paper, school children’s ability to locate geographical names on outline maps is compared with children’s ability to complete the same task 45 years earlier. A total of 1,124 students were included in the latter study, and the results were compared with those from a study of 1,200 students from the same town conducted in 1968. The results raise questions regarding the picture of the continuous decline in children’s school results and show, for example, that children today are better at locating continents on a world map. The final paper identifies a new aspect of map reading difficulties. These difficulties in map reading are increasingly important in our global society, i.e., how the edges of the world map cohere. The paper shows that many map readers, children and adults, respond according to the idea of linear peripheral continuity, which indicates that the proposed continuation is along the straight line that continues tangentially to the original route when it crosses the edge. In general, this understanding leads to incorrect interpretations of the continuation of world maps. At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Accepted.

The scope of this thesis is to show how the use of maps in political and scientific arguments functions as a mediator between ideological discourse and the physical landscape. This is done by studying three maps displaying the same geographical region but from different times and with different motifs. The maps were studied by operationalizing the French Sociologist Bruno Latour’s concept of immu-table mobiles into a methodological toolset.The thesis shows that the cartographic tradition of the Swedish state throughout the 20th century func-tioned as an immutable mobile that ideological actors could use to form political or scientific argu-ments. An almost trivial point to make. However, the problem is the great distance between state and the place, which in this case is about 1400 kilometers. Thus, the map allows a remote power relation-ship. As the state-owned immutable mobiles were extracted, they were interpreted by the politicians and scientists ideological perspectives. The ideological interpretations were then used in government propositions and reports and thus resulted in actual political decisions that affected the physical land-scape.The creation of Abisko National Park is one example of how this process can look. The park was instigated with a specific set of political goals to be achieved. The political and scientific actors used the immutable mobile that is the map and formed a proposition with it. The act of instigating and upholding the Abisko Valley as a national park is thus a manifestation of both state presence, its supremacy over territory as well as its contemporary ideological context. Moreover, it would be im-possible to instigate a park without the use of maps to define its borders. The planning and ratification of Transnational Road 98 can be seen as another example of the same thing, but with a different contemporary ideology as background.The thesis results in an explanation about what the maps role is in a stately place making process. Additionally the thesis shows what happens over time as different ideological embodiments in the landscape conflict with each other because of their different visions of how the landscape should be used and by whom. Uppsatsens syfte är att försöka hur kartor fungerar som en länk mellan politisk diskurs och det fysiska landskapet. Detta görs genom att studera tre kartor som avbildar samma område men vid olika tidpunkter och med olika motiv. Kartorna studeras genom en operationalisering av den franske sociologen Bruno Latour’s teori om ’immutable mobiles’.Uppsatsen visar att den statliga kartografiska verksamheten under 1900-talet i Sverige producerade immutable mobiles som sedan kunde avläsas av aktörer och som i sin tur kunde använda dem för att understödja deras politiska och vetenskapliga argument. En tillsynes trivial poäng. Problemet är dock avståndet i mellan den centraliserade makten och platsen som i detta fallet är ca 1400 kilometer. Kartorna möjliggör alltså en maktrelation trots det stora avståndet. Allt eftersom de statligt ägda kartorna var hämtade, tolkades de av aktörernas ideologiska perspektiv. Dessa tolkningar låg sedan till grund för politiska beslut som sedan resulterade i faktiska ingrepp i landskapet.Formerandet av Abisko nationalpark används i uppsatsen som ett exempel på hur denna process fungerar. Parken skapades med ett specifikt set av ideologiska motiv. De politiska aktörerna använde statliga kartor för att utforma sin proposition. Formerandet av parken är således en manifestation av både statlig närvaro, statlig kontroll över landskapet och ett ideologiskt artefakt. Det vore därtill omöjligt att skapa parken utan en karta för att definiera dess gränser. Planerandet och konstruerandet av mellanriksväg 98 mellan Kiruna och Narvik har analyserats på ett liknande sätt, dock med en annan ideologisk bakgrund.Uppsatsen resulterar i en möjlig förklaring till vad kartorna har för roll i en statlig platsskapande och landskapsförändrande process. Vidare så försöker uppsatsen förklara hur olika ideologiska tolkningar av landskapet kan hamna i konflikt med varandra över tid på grund av inkompatibla ideologiska motiv.

The scope of this thesis is to show how the use of maps in political and scientific arguments functions as a mediator between ideological discourse and the physical landscape. This is done by studying three maps displaying the same geographical region but from different times and with different motifs. The maps were studied by operationalizing the French Sociologist Bruno Latour’s concept of immu-table mobiles into a methodological toolset.The thesis shows that the cartographic tradition of the Swedish state throughout the 20th century func-tioned as an immutable mobile that ideological actors could use to form political or scientific argu-ments. An almost trivial point to make. However, the problem is the great distance between state and the place, which in this case is about 1400 kilometers. Thus, the map allows a remote power relation-ship. As the state-owned immutable mobiles were extracted, they were interpreted by the politicians and scientists ideological perspectives. The ideological interpretations were then used in government propositions and reports and thus resulted in actual political decisions that affected the physical land-scape.The creation of Abisko National Park is one example of how this process can look. The park was instigated with a specific set of political goals to be achieved. The political and scientific actors used the immutable mobile that is the map and formed a proposition with it. The act of instigating and upholding the Abisko Valley as a national park is thus a manifestation of both state presence, its supremacy over territory as well as its contemporary ideological context. Moreover, it would be im-possible to instigate a park without the use of maps to define its borders. The planning and ratification of Transnational Road 98 can be seen as another example of the same thing, but with a different contemporary ideology as background.The thesis results in an explanation about what the maps role is in a stately place making process. Additionally the thesis shows what happens over time as different ideological embodiments in the landscape conflict with each other because of their different visions of how the landscape should be used and by whom. Uppsatsens syfte är att försöka hur kartor fungerar som en länk mellan politisk diskurs och det fysiska landskapet. Detta görs genom att studera tre kartor som avbildar samma område men vid olika tidpunkter och med olika motiv. Kartorna studeras genom en operationalisering av den franske sociologen Bruno Latour’s teori om ’immutable mobiles’.Uppsatsen visar att den statliga kartografiska verksamheten under 1900-talet i Sverige producerade immutable mobiles som sedan kunde avläsas av aktörer och som i sin tur kunde använda dem för att understödja deras politiska och vetenskapliga argument. En tillsynes trivial poäng. Problemet är dock avståndet i mellan den centraliserade makten och platsen som i detta fallet är ca 1400 kilometer. Kartorna möjliggör alltså en maktrelation trots det stora avståndet. Allt eftersom de statligt ägda kartorna var hämtade, tolkades de av aktörernas ideologiska perspektiv. Dessa tolkningar låg sedan till grund för politiska beslut som sedan resulterade i faktiska ingrepp i landskapet.Formerandet av Abisko nationalpark används i uppsatsen som ett exempel på hur denna process fungerar. Parken skapades med ett specifikt set av ideologiska motiv. De politiska aktörerna använde statliga kartor för att utforma sin proposition. Formerandet av parken är således en manifestation av både statlig närvaro, statlig kontroll över landskapet och ett ideologiskt artefakt. Det vore därtill omöjligt att skapa parken utan en karta för att definiera dess gränser. Planerandet och konstruerandet av mellanriksväg 98 mellan Kiruna och Narvik har analyserats på ett liknande sätt, dock med en annan ideologisk bakgrund.Uppsatsen resulterar i en möjlig förklaring till vad kartorna har för roll i en statlig platsskapande och landskapsförändrande process. Vidare så försöker uppsatsen förklara hur olika ideologiska tolkningar av landskapet kan hamna i konflikt med varandra över tid på grund av inkompatibla ideologiska motiv.

This thesis is made for the Alipes project. Alipes is a project at the Center for Distance-spanning Technology (CDT). CDT is a department at Luleå University of Technology. The purpose with this thesis is to investigate and evaluate a standard for transferring GIS data to a mobile user and to introduce a new map retrieval system for Location Aware Applications in the Alipes project. Also, a way to lower the cost related to map data, by introducing caching into the system, is investigated. An application that implements these areas has been created. There is a need for geographic information standards for all businesses that produces, distributes or utilizes spatial information. Since digital data from a wide variety of sources is used by a diversity of applications, a standard for transferring geographic information called Web Map Service (WMS) has been developed by the Open GIS Consortium (OGC). A problem with the currently net-based map retrieval is that it is very expensive and therefore prohibitive for usage in Location Aware Applications. That is: there is a need to reduce the number of request to the map server. A way to solve this problem is to use caching. Caching is a way to store and reuse data. There are different ways of caching data: the most common is to cache it locally (on disc) or to use a proxy server. An application that uses the WMS standard and caching is developed. It is implemented in a handheld computer (PDA), and retrieves its position and connects to the map server via WLAN. Using WMS also makes it possible to retrieve additional information about objects on the map, such as restaurants, movie theaters etc. The caching method used in the application is to download a larger map then the one requested. A smaller map is then cut out from the larger map and then used by the application. This way the client does not have to request the server for a new map unless the requested area is outside the downloaded map, hence the number of requests is reduced. Our conclusion is that the standardized method for map retrieval should be implemented in order to maintain an up-to-date technology in the management of GIS-data. The best way of using caching would be to use a proxy so that a user can take advantage of the data retrieved by other users. However this might cause problems regarding the ownership of the data. A way to solve this could be to make a business model with the map distributor. Validerat; 20101217 (root)

Detta arbete behandlar mobilpositionering och relaterade tjänster, så kallade location-based services. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka hur mobilpositionering kommer att utvecklas i takt med att nya mobilsystem tillåter mer avancerade mobila tjänster. En applikation, Finder Client har utvecklats för att kunna visa vänners positioner på en handdators karta. Kartorna som används finns i färdiga ruttplaneringsprodukter som installeras på handdatorn. Positioneringen sker via en GSM-telefon och SMS. Syftet är även att visa att man kan spara data på handdatorn för att göra intelligentare applikationer. Utvecklingen har gjorts i OPL för en Psion 5mx handdator. OPL är inbyggt i Psion och liknar språk som Pascal och Basic. Slutsatsen är att det går bra att utveckla en Finder klient för handdatorer men det vore mer användarvänligt att utveckla den för en kombinerad handator och mobiltelefon, en så kallad Smart Phone. Man kan också tänka sig att GSM-positionering blir en del av ett ruttplaneringsprogram precis som GPS-positionering är idag. En marknadsundersökning har utförts i examensarbetet. Det kan konstateras att en kombination av GSM- och GPS-positionering kommer troligen att vara lyckosammast i framtiden. De drivande krafterna inom mobilpositionering är den amerikanska statens påbud att alla mobiltelefoner ska kunna positioneras vid alarmsamtal (E911) samt att mobiltelefonoperatörerna ser tjänsterna som en ny potentiell inkomstkälla. Det är mycket svårt att säga vilka tjänster som kommer att bli populära i framtiden. Lösningar som riktar sig till ungdomar, underhållningsbranchen och mot att navigera/spåra fordon ser dock mycket intressanta ut. Det är troligt att positionering kommer att utgöra en liten del i många framtida mobila tjänster. ABSTRACT This work deals with the aspects of location-based services. The aim is to investigate how mobile positioning is going to develop in relation to the fact that new mobile system allows more advanced mobile services. An application, an enhanced Finder Client is developed. It uses maps to display friends’ positions on a handheld computer (PDA). The maps are off-the-shelf route planning products that are installed on the PDA. The positioning is made using a GSM mobile phone and SMS as a means for communication. The aim is also to show that it is possible to store large amounts of data on the PDA to make more intelligent applications. The development is performed in OPL on a Psion 5mx handheld computer. OPL is Psion’s built-in programming language, quite similar to languages like Pascal and Basic. The conclusion is that it is possible to develop a Finder Client for handheld computers but it would be more user-friendly to develop the client on a combined mobile phone and a PDA: a Smart Phone. It can also be possible to incorporate GSM positioning into the map software just as GPS positioning is a part of them today. A market overview has also been performed. The conclusion is that a combination of GSM and GPS positioning is probably the most successful solution for the future. The driving force is the Federal Communications Commissions, FCCs E911 decree, which regulates that all emergency calls from a mobile phone must be able to be positioned. Another aspect is that the mobile operators consider location-based services to be a new source for income. It is difficult to estimate which solutions that are going to be popular in the future. Services focusing on the youth, entertainment and vehicle navigation/tracking seems however to be the most interesting. It is likely to believe that mobile positioning is going to be a small part in many mobile services in the future. Validerat; 20101217 (root)