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Cartographic visualisation of the literary space is facing a major challenge resulting from different levels of detail within which the textual descriptions of settings are made by authors. Those range between very detailed descriptions within parts of a city to spatially spread events within a country, or long journeys across continents. Depending on the fictional texts, fictional action often concentrates on a few main places, resulting in high information density – in the form of various individual settings. As well, they are also embedded in a larger environment. When interactively analysing or choosing a section to print a literary map with individual spatial elements, the user has to choose a map scale, which will result in the output of either a detailed representation of a main place or the geographical overview of the fictional space having a small level of detail. However, it would be a great advantage to receive as much information as possible from one single map view. In order to achie...

We give an algorithm to create orthogonal drawings of 3-connected 3-regular plane graphs such that each interior face of the graph is drawn with a prescribed area. This algorithm produces a drawing with at most 12 corners per face and 4 bends per edge, which improves the previous known result of 34 corners per face.

Background Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) is the leading cause of death worldwide and its prevention is a public health priority. Method We analysed worldwide IHD mortality data from the World Health Organisation as of February 2014 by country, age and income. Age-standardised mortality rates by country were calculated. We constructed a cartogram which is an algorithmically transformed world map that conveys numbers of deaths in the form of spatial area. Results Of the countries that provided mortality data, Russia, the United States of America and Ukraine contributed the largest numbers of deaths. India and China were estimated to have even larger numbers of deaths. Death rates from IHD increase rapidly with age. Crude mortality rates appear to be stable whilst age-standardised mortality rates are falling. Over half of the world's countries (113/216) have provided IHD mortality data for 2008 or later. Of these, 13 countries provided data in 2012. No countries have yet provided 2013 data. Of the 103 remaining countries, 24 provided data in 2007 or earlier, and 79 have never provided data in the ICD9 or ICD10 format. Conclusions In the countries for which there are good longitudinal data, predominantly European countries, recent years have shown a continuing decline in age-standardised IHD mortality. However, the progressive aging of populations has kept crude IHD mortality high. It is not known whether the pattern is consistent globally because many countries have not provided regular annual data including wealthy countries such as the United Arab Emirates and large countries such as India and China., Highlights • We use a cartogram to display the worldwide distribution of IHD deaths. • India, China, Russia, USA and Ukraine have the largest estimated numbers of deaths. • Turkmenistan and Ukraine have the highest estimated standardised mortality ratios. • Crude IHD mortality remains high whilst age-standardised mortality is falling. • Only 113 of 216 countries provided IHD mortality data for 2008 or later.

To understand the nature of movement data, we introduce an alternative visual representation looking at paths from different perspectives. The movements and their stops are schematized into lines. These are distorted based on time or distance by applying line cartogram principles to answer specific location- or time-based questions. A prototype consisting of multiple linked views, including the line cartograms and a map, is implemented in a web environment using D3.js. It allows one to explore the nature of single or multiple movements. The option to compare multiple movements gives the solution its unique character. A preliminary evaluation of the product shows it is able the answer questions related to time and space accordingly.

The article presents localities of 123 species of endangered macrofungi found between 1955 and 2005 in 25 nature reserves in the Wielkopolska region, where mycocoenological studies were carried out. The distribution of these reserves is shown in the cartogram based on the ATPOL grid.

The article presents a characterization and concentration of medicinal synanthropic plants found in the area of Łask. The research on medicinal synanthropic flora in Łask were ran in 2001-2002. The method of cartogram was used in the research. The mentioned method is grounded on a mapping of all species in a grid of the same square fields. The medicinal flora of the researched area consists of 227 taxons. Hemicryptophytes (41,4%) and therophytes (23,8%) dominate the other life forms. Native species - apophyta (157 species - 69,2%) - predominate within Łask's medicinal synanthropic flora.

The global competitiveness index (GCI) of a country is a comprehensive indicator to measure its social-economic development, sustainability and prospects reflecting national competitiveness by World Economic Forum (WEF, 2013). Thematic maps are commonly used to visualize such geo-distributed data. Cartogram resizes the area of polygons according to a specific variable providing a new perspective to understand the distribution of country's competitiveness on world. Essentially, cartogram presents a different cognitive space which differs from the well-known geographic space. In this paper, we generate the GCI cartogram with a combination of color scheme and compare it with the traditional thematic map to gain a better understanding of the distribution of country’s competitiveness.

Cartograms are a cartographic approach that is based on the geometric transformation of enumeration units to enhance spatial presentation of variables of interest. The automatic construction of cartograms within digital computing environments, as recognized in the literature, is impeded by the issue of computational efficiency. Parallel computing is a potential solution for tackling the computational issue of cartogram construction, and its importance is increasingly acknowledged with the wider spread and application of advanced cyberinfrastructure into geographic studies. The purpose of this article is to investigate the use of a state-of-the-art parallel computing approach, graphics processing units GPUs, to accelerate the construction of large circular cartograms, a special form of area cartograms. GPUs, built on many-core computing architecture and thread parallelism, provide tremendous high-performance computing and even supercomputing support for general-purpose geocomputation. In this study, the construction of a circular cartogram is divided into a large number of fine-grained subtasks that can be efficiently and simultaneously computed on the underlying many-core GPUs. Simulated and real data were used in experiments to examine the computational performance of GPU-enabled construction of circular cartograms. Experimental results suggest that the GPU-enabled parallel computing approach offers significant acceleration performance for the construction of large circular cartograms, and thus sheds further light on the resolution of computationally intensive spatial and spatiotemporal problems using advanced cartographic and geovisualization approaches.

Despite the rapid development of geoinformation technology and GIS - a classic cartogram is still widely used method for presenting geographic features and phenomena, especially with regard to the relative values connected with the basic fields. The aim of this article was to investigate how the size and shape of the different basic fields influence the results of the phenomenon presentation (in this case anthropogenic line forms). In the experiment were used fields in the shape of: square, hexagon, circle and triangle with different sizes: 1 km, 2 km, 4 km, 8 km and 10 km. Different field areas with the same height, but of a different shape affected to varied quantitative characteristics within them. However, different field heights have caused an obvious increase or decrease the detail of the results. To take a look at the image of the spatial distribution of line forms compared cartograms with another, independent method - kernel density analysis. After setting kernel density image with cartograms one turned out that basic fields shape did not change the image of spatial relations significantly and wellcharacterized them in general. For this study area the best results obtained after the application fields with heights of 2 km and 4 km in the shape of squares and hexagons. It appears that the hexagons better than squares reflect the spatial image of the forms (hexagons allow better representation of the directions and shapes of the studied phenomena), however, they are less common in a geostatistical researches, and that's why they are more difficult to use, especially for comparative analysis.

Visualization of geographic variables as spatial objects of size proportional to variable strength is possible via generating cartograms. We developed a methodology based on mathematical morphology to generate contiguous cartograms. This methodology relies on weighted skeletonization by zone of influence. This weighted skeletonization by zone of influence determines the points of contact of multiple frontlines propagating from centroids of various planar sets (states) at the traveling rates depending upon the variable’s strength. The contiguous cartogram generated via this morphology-based algorithm preserves the global shape and local shapes and yields minimal area errors. We generated a cartogram for a population variable to demonstrate the proposed approach. Furthermore, the population cartograms for the United States generated via four other approaches are compared with the morphology-based cartogram in terms of errors with respect to area, local shape, and global shape. This approach for generating cartograms preserves the global shape at the expense of compromising with area errors. It is inferred from the comparative error analysis that the proposed morphology-based approach could be further extended by exploring the applicability of additional characteristics of B, which controls the dilation propagation speed and direction of dilation while performing weighted skeletonization by zone of influence, to minimize the local shape errors and area errors.

This article presents a fast, free-form rubber-sheet Carto3F algorithm for the construction of contiguous area cartograms. Rubber-sheet algorithms are influential and popular because of their conceptual simplicity. Existing rubber-sheet algorithms, however, tend to be algorithmically inefficient and computationally slow. More critically, they cannot completely preserve topology. Carto3F specifically improves rubber-sheet algorithms in these two aspects. First, with a spatial structure of quadtree and a mathematical condition for topological equivalence, Carto3F can prevent topological errors and guarantees topological integrity. Second, Carto3F is designed with efficiency as a priority. Its efficiency is primarily gained through using the auxiliary quadtree to reduce the number of points to be transformed. Furthermore, Carto3F allows parallel computation and can fully take advantage of the increasingly common multi-core, multi-thread processors. Based on the mathematical analysis, Carto3F also mitigates the effect of force cancellation that is inherent in rubber-sheet algorithms. On a computer equipped with a 2.4-GHz quad-core CPU, Carto3F can produce quality population cartograms of the United States, China, and the world within 1 second, 18 seconds, and 8 minutes, respectively. Quantitative measures show that Carto3F outperforms the optimized rubber-sheet algorithm and the diffusion algorithm in both transformation effectiveness and computational efficiency.

Species distribution models have become an important tool for biodiversity monitoring. Like all statistical modelling techniques developed based on field data, they are prone to uncertainty due to bias in the sampling (e.g. identification, effort, detectability). In this study, we explicitly quantify and map the uncertainty derived from sampling effort bias. With that aim, we extracted data from the widely used GBIF dataset to map this semantic bias using cartograms.

Background Health officials and epidemiological researchers often use maps of disease rates to identify potential disease clusters. Because these maps exaggerate the prominence of low-density districts and hide potential clusters in urban (high-density) areas, many researchers have used density-equalizing maps (cartograms) as a basis for epidemiological mapping. However, we do not have existing guidelines for visual assessment of statistical uncertainty. To address this shortcoming, we develop techniques for visual determination of statistical significance of clusters spanning one or more districts on a cartogram. We developed the techniques within a geovisual analytics framework that does not rely on automated significance testing, and can therefore facilitate visual analysis to detect clusters that automated techniques might miss. Results On a cartogram of the at-risk population, the statistical significance of a disease cluster is determinate from the rate, area and shape of the cluster under standard hypothesis testing scenarios. We develop formulae to determine, for a given rate, the area required for statistical significance of a priori and a posteriori designated regions under certain test assumptions. Uniquely, our approach enables dynamic inference of aggregate regions formed by combining individual districts. The method is implemented in interactive tools that provide choropleth mapping, automated legend construction and dynamic search tools to facilitate cluster detection and assessment of the validity of tested assumptions. A case study of leukemia incidence analysis in California demonstrates the ability to visually distinguish between statistically significant and insignificant regions. Conclusion The proposed geovisual analytics approach enables intuitive visual assessment of statistical significance of arbitrarily defined regions on a cartogram. Our research prompts a broader discussion of the role of geovisual exploratory analyses in disease mapping and the appropriate framework for visually assessing the statistical significance of spatial clusters. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12942-017-0093-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Distance cartograms can be viewed as a special type of azimuthal map projection. Area cartograms are a generalization of equal area maps in the sense that conventional equal area maps are a special case of area cartograms in which the physical earth surface is the propeerty that is preserved. This can be shown by examination of the map projection equations.

The objective of this chapter will be to give some elements regarding the way to visualize geographic data and knowledge for decision-makers. Indeed, conventional cartography presents some limits and sometimes decision-makers require for novel types of visualization which can help them efficiently. Under the banner of visual analytics and geovisualization, new approaches are emerging, sometimes far from classical mapping.

In this paper, an updated map of the distribution of Solidago ×niederederi, a natural hybrid between S. canadensis and S. virgaurea, in Poland is presented using the ATPOL cartogram method. A compiled list of 55 localities of the hybrid within 40 cartogram units (10-km squares) is provided and its negative impact on S. virgaurea is highlighted.

Formulation of the problem. Use of GIS in socio-geographical studies determines their quality in our time. Due to the ability to display and analyze data, geographic information systems reveal the peculiarities of the spatial interaction of social and geographical objects. Use of GIS in the human geography to study population settlement systems allows us to establish patterns of formation and development in settlements and peculiarities of their distribution across the territory. The use of analytical capabilities of the GIS in the study of settlement systems helps to find out what determines the location of settlements and the link between them. The main stages of GIS analysis should be considered, such as questioning, evaluation of data, selection of the method of analysis, data processing and evaluation of the results. The purpose of the article. The purpose of this study is to uncover methodical bases for the use of geoinformation systems in the study of resettlement systems of the population in the region on the example of Kharkiv region in such GIS platforms as Map Info, Arc View, Arc Gis. Methods . The author’s own achievements as well as the research results of domestic and foreign investigators made the methodical basis for the article. Results . The article reveals the role of geoinformation systems in socio-geographical research, defines the main functions of geoinformation systems in the study of settlement systems, and presents an algorithm for conducting GIS analysis. Using geoinformation systems, the analysis of the resale structure of the region was carried out, advantages and disadvantages of methods of constructing population density maps of the region were identified, ways of constructing cartograms were presented. Features of constructing maps of demographic potential are presented in the article. The centrographic method is used for mathematical description of the spatial distribution of the population in the region. The topological methods of centrometry are presented. The advantages of using GIS in the research of resale systems are determined. Scientific novelty and practical significance . The article highlights the fact that when using GIS to construct cartographic images of the resettlement systems development, a combination of the spatial-temporal aspects of the research is important. One of the important advantages of the geoinformation approach in the study of resettlement systems is the operation of the attribute of objects, since a significant part of the derivatives of the geodemographic data given in the work (dynamics, density, percentages) were calculated by means of processing attributive information in GIS systems. Thus, using the GIS systems in the research of resale systems is explained by the need to establish spatiotemporal interconnections between settlements, to identify the features of the impact of the developed settlements on less developed, to determine the prospects for their further development and evolution of the system as a whole.

Anticipating species distributions in space and time is necessary for effective biodiversity conservation and for prioritising management interventions. This is especially true when considering invasive species. In such a case, anticipating their spread is important to effectively plan management actions. However, considering uncertainty in the output of species distribution models is critical for correctly interpreting results and avoiding inappropriate decision-making. In particular, when dealing with species inventories, the bias resulting from sampling effort may lead to an over- or under-estimation of the local density of occurrences of a species. In this paper we propose an innovative method to i) map sampling effort bias using cartogram models and ii) explicitly consider such uncertainty in the modeling procedure under a Bayesian framework, which allows the integration of multilevel input data with prior information to improve the anticipation species distributions.

Communication of climate change (CC) risks is challenging, in particular if global‐scale spatially resolved quantitative information is to be conveyed. Typically, visualization of CC risks, which arise from the combination of hazard, exposure and vulnerability, is confined to showing only the hazards in the form of global thematic maps. This paper explores the potential of contiguous value‐by‐area cartograms, that is, distorted density‐equalizing maps, for improving communication of CC risks and the countries' differentiated responsibilities for CC. Two global‐scale cartogram sets visualize, as an example, groundwater‐related CC risks in 0.5° grid cells, another one the correlation of (cumulative) fossil‐fuel carbon dioxide emissions with the countries' population and gross domestic product. Viewers of the latter set visually recognize the lack of global equity and that the countries' wealth has been built on harmful emissions. I recommend that CC risks are communicated by bivariate gridded cartograms showing the hazard in color and population, or a combination of population and a vulnerability indicator, by distortion of grid cells. Gridded cartograms are also appropriate for visualizing the availability of natural resources to humans. For communicating complex information, sets of cartograms should be carefully designed instead of presenting single cartograms. Inclusion of a conventionally distorted map enhances the viewers' capability to take up the information represented by distortion. Empirical studies about the capability of global cartograms to convey complex information and to trigger moral emotions should be conducted, with a special focus on risk communication. With ongoing climate change (CC), policymakers, stakeholders and the public want to know about related risks all around the world. A traditional way of informing about, for example, how CC may alter the world's water resources are global thematic maps; they show the projected change of the amount of water resources until some period in the future by different colors. A new way of visualizing data is cartograms. Cartograms are distorted maps where the areas of spatial map units are changed according to an attribute, for example, the number of people living in the spatial unit. Different from traditional maps, cartograms cannot only show the CC hazard (e.g., the potential water resources decrease) but also the exposure to the hazard (how many people will be affected). The paper presents three sets of global cartograms, two about CC risks and one that shows that the countries' wealth has been built on harmful emissions since the 19th century. I recommend that cartogram sets are used to visualize CC risks and the availability of natural resources to humans. It should be investigated to what extent cartograms can convey complex information and trigger moral emotions, thus supporting the Earth's sustainable development.

Variable-scale maps have been advocated by several authors in the context of mobile cartography. In the literature on real-time map generalisation, however, corresponding methods that resolve cartographic conflicts by deformation of the underlying map space together with the map foreground, are underrepresented. This paper demonstrates how the concept of a malleable space can be applied as a part of the generalisation process and incorporated into the overall methodology of point generalisation. Two different algorithms are used, a density-equalising cartogram algorithm and Laplacian smoothing. Both methods work in real-time and are datadriven. In addition, they allow for a parameterisation in combi-nation with a quadtree data structure, as well as a combination with 'classic' generalisation operators (e.g. selection, aggregation, displacement) based on the quadtree. The quadtree serves both as a spatial index for fast retrieval and search of points, and as a density estimator to inform generalisation operators. The use of the quadtree as a common spatial index provides a tool to combine variable-scale maps with classic generalisation. A combination of the two allows, at small map scales, the maintenance of detail in dense areas and data reduction in sparse areas. Additionally, it facilitates building a modular workflow for real-time map generalisation.

Applying flow maps in large datasets involves dealing with the reduction of visual cluttering. Nowadays, a technique known as edge bundling, which is geometric in nature, is often applied to reduce visual clutter and create meaningful traces that highlight the main streams of flow. This article presents an alternative approach of edge bundling for generating flow maps. Our approach uses a swarm-based system to reduce visual clutter, bundling edges in an organic fashion and improving clarity. The method takes into account the properties of data, edges and nodes, to bundle edges in a meaningful way while tracing lines that do not interfere visually with the nodes. Additionally, the Dorling cartograms technique is applied to reduce overlapping of graphical elements that render locations in geographic space. The method is demonstrated with application in the analysis of the US migration flow and transportation of products among warehouses and supermarkets of a major retail company in Portugal.

Spatial thinking is a type of reasoning or literacy that can be used for navigating the world. In this context, it is referred to as geospatial thinking or geo-literacy. Maps are the graphical tools that convey this location-based information and geo-literacy, an essential concept for interpreting and using maps. Being geo-literate goes beyond traversing points A to B, and cartographers create many different map types that broadly fall into two categories of reference or thematic maps. Reference maps show where things are and thematic maps communicate a specific message about the world. Some of the mapping techniques and map types that librarians will encounter are defined and illustrated in this chapter.

The main classes of problems of exact farming, solved with the involvement of robotics, are discussed. The use of precision navigation systems for robotic agricultural machines allows us to determine the actual soil parameters, calculate the cartograms for fertilizer application, taking into account the spatial variability of the agricultural contour. A promising method is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for surveying and selecting intra field agricultural contours from a small height. To reduce the variability of soil characteristics in the fields, various robotic means of processing and preparation are used, including for leveling the soil. Given the regularity of planting crops on the fields, automatic systems of parallel driving of agricultural machinery are gaining popularity. Based on the analysis of modern robotic agro systems, promising areas for further research are formulated.

The article discusses the main aspects of the formation of information-analytical materials on the basis of verified statistical information in the framework of the expert-analytical support for monitoring the effectiveness of higher education schools В статье рассмотрены основные аспекты формирования информационно-аналитических материалов на основе верифицированной статистической информации в рамках экспертно-аналитического сопровождения проведения мониторинга эффективности деятельности образовательных организаций высшего образования

This article optimizes a continuous area cartogram algorithm published in The Professional Geographer by Dougenik, Chrisman, and Niemeyer (DCN) in 1985. The DCN algorithm simulates a rubber sheet and is an iterative and approximate solution of cartogram construction. Although it remains popular because of its conceptual simplicity and cartographic quality, the DCN algorithm cannot completely preserve topology and its mathematical properties are inadequately explained. This article presents an optimization to the DCN algorithm, named Opti-DCN, with three improvements. First, it provides a mathematical condition for topology preservation. Second, new transformation equations that meet this condition are deduced from mathematics, which simultaneously optimize the global elasticity coefficient, a key parameter that greatly impacts the convergence rate of the rubber-sheet algorithm and the topological integrity of its generated cartograms. Last, the new algorithm simplifies the way of generating transforming f...

How to process massive historic natural disasters events is a great challenge to recognize patterns. And more and more scientific research data provides a new source of nature disasters. In this study, the biclustering method is used to categorize the scientists concerned natural disasters and historic events. Cartograms, one kind of transformed maps, are created to highlight numbers of publications and events in a country. Reaction index (RI) is introduced to evaluate the difference between scientists concerned nature disasters and historic events. The results show that biclustering is a useful method to categorize data with high volumes and dimensions. Cartograms could represent conceptual patterns that are difficult to be displayed in regular maps. Analysis indicates that earthquakes and landslides attract relatively more concerns from scientists in the north hemisphere; floods are more focused by scientists in the south hemisphere. Although droughts are not significant in the cartogram of historic events, they obtain attentions from scientists of inland as well. The distribution of RIs shows that more scientists need to put more efforts in dealing with natural disasters, especially in Indonesia and Philippines.

Usando a abordagem da Cartografia Transformacional, este ensaio apresenta métodos e metodologias utilizando aplicativos computacionais que permitem construir mapas que revelem a acessibilidade intraurbana no município de São Paulo. Utilizou-se a distância-tempo mínima necessária para ligar dois lugares e como meio de locomoção usou-se o automóvel e o transporte coletivo - em particular, o ônibus. En utilisant l'approche de la Cartographie Transformationnelle, ce document présente des méthodes et des méthodologies utilisant des applications informatiques qui permettent de construire des cartes montrant l'accessibilité intra-urbaine dans la ville de São Paulo. On a utilisé la distance-temps minimum nécessaire pour relier deux lieux, utilisant comme moyen de locomotion la voiture et les transports publics - notamment le bus. Using the approach of Transformational Cartography, this paper presents methods and methodologies using computer applications that allow the development of maps that show the intra-urban accessibility in the city of São Paulo. We used the minimum distance-time required to connect two places and the means of locomotion used are the car and the public transportation - particularly the bus.

Wilderness is normally visualised using conventional mapping approaches showing the least touched spaces on the planet. Because most of the world’s population lives in very limited spaces, this is a useful method of representation. The effects of human action, however, go much further than that, resulting in much of the land area being relatively close to humankind while the remotest and ‘wildest’ spaces are very little areas on a normal map. This chapter looks at alternative ways to visualise the most remote parts of the land area: by deploying a so-called gridded cartogram transformation to data about the (in)accessibility of a place, the resulting cartograms reveal the areas and the extent of the remotest spaces in a much less common way. Gridded cartograms are created by using an equally distributed grid onto which a density-equalising cartogram technique is applied. Each individual grid cell is resized according to its the average travel time to the nearest larger city. This technique is not only applied to the global scale, but also to regional and national-level data. The results are maps that give the remotest places most space and provide a unique and highly visual perspective on the spatial dimension of remoteness.

Cartograms combine statistical and geographical information in thematic maps, where areas of geographical regions (e.g., countries, states) are scaled in proportion to some statistic (e.g., population, income). Cartograms make it possible to gain insight into patterns and trends in the world around us and have been very popular visualizations for geo-referenced data for over a century. This work surveys cartogram research in visualization, cartography and geometry, covering a broad spectrum of different cartogram types: from the traditional rectangular and table cartograms, to Dorling and diffusion cartograms. A particular focus is the study of the major cartogram dimensions: statistical accuracy, geographical accuracy, and topological accuracy. We review the history of cartograms, describe the algorithms for generating them, and consider task taxonomies. We also review quantitative and qualitative evaluations, and we use these to arrive at design guidelines and research challenges.

The London 2012 Olympic Games was a true spectacle of sporting achievement. It also provided the impetus for official organisations, news media and individuals to turn the vast amount of data into map form. This paper provides an outline of some of the cartographic highlights (and one or two lowlights) that the Olympics inspired. There were some great maps on view and also some interesting trends emerging, particularly in terms of web maps and web maps used as infographics. In particular, the Dorling cartogram saw widespread use, particularly to map medal tallies by online news media.

Information on how maize rough dwarf disease (MRDD) is spatially concentrated by different characteristics is a key means of guiding agronomic arrangement. In particular, to reduce the spread of MRDD, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of contributors in terms of environment and their geographical structure. Here, we used 179 survey plots to investigate the spatial distributions and heterogeneity in the model residuals from four regression models with the ordinary least squares (OLS) as the benchmark. The results demonstrated that MRDD had the spatial dependency and spatial heterogeneity, and the geographically weighted regression (GWR) was the most of reliable regression models and performed well in three types of cartograms. Eight environmental factors had dissimilar influence on each county's MRDD.

A rectangular layout is a partition of a rectangle into a finite set of interior-disjoint rectangles. These layouts are used as rectangular cartograms in cartography, as floorplans in building architecture and VLSI design, and as graph drawings. Often areas are associated with the rectangles of a rectangular layout and it is desirable for one rectangular layout to represent several area assignments. A layout is area-universal if any assignment of areas to rectangles can be realized by a combinatorially equivalent rectangular layout. We identify a simple necessary and sufficient condition for a rectangular layout to be area-universal: a rectangular layout is area-universal if and only if it is one-sided. We also investigate similar questions for perimeter assignments. The adjacency requirements for the rectangles of a rectangular layout can be specified in various ways, most commonly via the dual graph of the layout. We show how to find an area-universal layout for a given set of adjacency requirements whenever such a layout exists. Furthermore we show how to impose restrictions on the orientations of edges and junctions of the rectangular layout. Such an orientation-constrained layout, if it exists, may be constructed in polynomial time, and all orientation-constrained layouts may be listed in polynomial time per layout.

Cartogram, an impressive way of spatial data visualization, is widely used in Eastern countries. However, it has not been officially introduced nor accepted in Viet Nam. Aiming at diversifying data visualization methods, this paper presents an overview of cartogram with Vietnamdata- illustration, from which an issue of using this way of data visualization would be considered.

Mapping methods employed by geographers, known as diffusion cartograms (diffusion-based density-equalizing maps), are used to present visually interesting and informative plots for data such as income, health, voting patterns, and resource availability. The algorithm involves changing the sizes of geographic regions such as countries or provinces so that they appear in proportion to the property in question while maintaining topographic integrity. These methods are employed here to portray numerical data properties of the elements. The periodic table is treated as a “map” of square “countries” and distorted using a diffusion cartogram algorithm to display periodic properties.

Diffusion-based cartograms provide a new, more innovative way to visually explore and represent spatial data than do standard maps. In this study, we explore two basic issues regarding visual effectiveness and expressiveness of diffusion-based cartograms: first, we evaluate different applications to support our study hypotheses; and second, we evaluate the visual effectiveness of the resulting maps using five criteria: attribute values, colour, labels, readability of maps, and clusters. Besides, diffusion-based cartograms are compared to standard choropleth mapping to illustrate the additional visual exploratory power these cartograms have to offer. Recent studies have shown that diffusion-based cartograms can facilitate the uncovering of underlying and hidden structures, thus providing a more elaborate visual representation of attribute value than conventional mapping does. Interestingly, the ability to display and visualize small areas and geographic locations with high attribute values using diffusion-...

Dark colored chernozem-like soils are the most fertile soils of desertified steppes. They occupy shallow depressions in the micro- and mesorelief of the Caspian Lowland. They are easily identified automatically under any type of human activity (except for forest belts of agroforest amelioration systems). Compared to other soils, they are characterized by higher values of the NDVI vegetation index. On the basis of automatic interpretation of a Quickbird satellite image (resolution 2.44), a map was made of the distribution of dark colored chernozem-like soils in the area of the Dzhanybek station of the Institute of Forest Science, Russian Academy of Sciences (the total area of study was 50.6 km2). A fragment of it is given in the paper. The accuracy of interpretation dark colored soils is 77%. In a sliding window of 15 × 15 pixels, the percentage of dark colored chernozem-like soils in the soil association was calculated and a cartogram was made, which reflects the uneven distribution of these soils in the studied territory. It is given in the paper in its entirety. In the area of the Dzhanybek station, soil associations with 0–25% of dark colored soils prevail.

In the work, the peculiarities of shock-wave diagnostics of voids and the estimation of load of lining of mine workings based on the construction of cartograms are considered. Mapping is the most visible and informative way of presenting measurement results. For mapping, select such areas that provide equal scales along different axes in the image sweep the surface. The image format contains options for automatic contouring, displaying contour lines, and printing of levels of values for the corresponding contours. The mapping operation itself automatically makes it possible to estimate the depth of the cavities being monitored, and this definition is accurate in terms of area and relative depth, since it is based on automatic processing of measurement results. Only refinements are needed to determine the absolute value of the depth by measuring methods at various bases or drilling holes.

An area cartogram is a transformed map on which areas of regions are proportional to statistical data values; it is considered to be a powerful tool for the visual representation of statistical data. A circle cartogram is a type of area cartograms, on which regions are represented by circles. Its first construction algorithm is proposed by Dorling in 1996, based on the following requirements to construct visually elegant cartograms: 1) maintain the similarity of configurations between circles and regions, 2) express the contiguity of regions on cartograms if possible, and 3) avoid overlap of circles. The algorithm is widely used for its easiness to use and its ability to express a spatial distribution of data; however, the relative positions of circles on cartograms sometimes greatly differ from the geographical maps, since the algorithm does not consider the first requirements explicitly. In this paper, it is first pointed out that the construction problem of circle cartograms resembles that of distance ...

This study is motivated to explore and visualize the dynamic citation impact at the state and country level. We present several information visualization approaches, including cartograms and global citation maps, to understand the citation impact distribution in library and information science (LIS). We find that the citation impact in LIS is highly skewed towards North American and European countries. Through the dynamic analysis, states such as GEORGIA and FLORIDA, countries such as CHINA and SOUTH KOREA are becoming more impactful.

Pliszko A., 2014: A new Polish record of Dracocephalum thymiflorum [Nauja Dracocephalum thymiflorum radvietė Lenkijoje]. - Both. Lith., 20(1): 64-66. The paper presents a new record of a rare casual alien Dracocephalum thymiflorum L. (Lamiaceae) in Poland. A small population consisting of 42 generative individuals of this species was found in May 2013 on railway embankment in Okuniowiec village near the northeastern boundary of the town of Suwałki in the Polish part of the Lithuanian Lakeland. The current distribution (according to the ATPOL cartogram grid) is given, and introduction pathways via railway transport and contaminated crop seed are recognized

The aim of the study was to present “Herbarium” computer database. The basic goal of construction of the database was gathering and analysing of archival and contemporary floristic data referring to the area of Central Poland. Registered information considers the stands and characteristic biological and ecological traits of particular taxa. Life forms, indices of ecological requirements, the phytogeographical elements, protection and threat status are among them. The database enables the presentation of geographical distribution of taxa in the area of Central Poland with the cartogram method based on the grid of 2 km2 according to the Distribution Atlas of Vascular Plants in Poland (ATPOL).

D'Arcy Thompson (1960–1948) was one of the most celebrated biologists of his day, best known for his On Growth and Form (1917) which was the first successful biophysical explanation of the size and shape of organisms. In particular, his concept of allometric growth and theory of transformations have informed cutting edge research in biometrics and practice in the fields of fine art, urban design and civil engineering. He was a seminal figure in the development of the spatial analysis tradition within geography in the 1960s and 1970s underpinning major contributions by Haggett and Bunge and inspiring Tobler to develop cartograms which liberated map projections from sole reliance on Euclidean geometry. Re-assessing his contribution to geography fifty years later, it is still to be found in Batty's work on the size, shape and scale of cities and in Dorling's World Mapper project. This re-discovery of the importance of geometry within the geographic tradition over the last half century owes much to T...

Marketing planners often use geographical information systems (GISs) to help identify suitable retail locations, regionally distribute advertising campaigns, and target direct marketing activities. Geographical information systems thematic maps facilitate the visual assessment of map regions. A broad set of alternative symbolizations, such as circles, bars, or shading, can be used to visually represent quantitative geospatial data on such maps. However, there is little knowledge on which kind of symbolization is the most adequate in which problem situation. In a large-scale experimental study, the authors show that the type of symbolization strongly influences decision performance. The findings indicate that graduated circles are appropriate symbolizations for geographical information systems thematic maps, and their successful utilization seems to be virtually independent of personal characteristics, such as spatial ability and map experience. This makes circle symbolizations particularly suitable for effective decision making and cross-functional communication.