The ability to mine data via new emerging methodologies for the collection, analysis and leverage of spatially related information is gathering pace and entering the main stream of social science. The key to this is three fold, firstly the move of information into the digital domain with datasets previously limited to corporations or local government organizations becoming available online, this is a recent trend. Secondly the rise of Neogeography, volunteered geographic information, crowd sourcing and citizen science above and beyond the traditional geographic domain. Thirdly the development of new toolkits that take advantage of various application programming interfaces (API’s) to allow non-programmers to quickly and easily mix, match and visualize datasets which would of previously been prohibitively technical. Such activites as a whole can be defined as Neogeography, the term derives from Eisnor (2006) one of the founders of www.platial.com where she defines it (Neogeography) as ‘…a diverse set of practices that operate outside, or alongside, or in a manner of, the practices of professional geographers.

Rather than making claims on scientific standards, methodologies of Neogeography tend towards intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic, but may just be idiosyncratic applications of ‘real’ geographic techniques. This is not to say that these practices are of no use to the cartographic/geographic sciences, but they just usually do not conform the protocols of professional practice’. We see this as key to the renaissance of geographic information, the term Neogeography is perhaps of its time, in a similar manner that ‘Cyberspace’ is now rarely used. The importance is the trend towards the intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic use of data without worrying, or indeed caring, about standards. A term to replace Neogeography? Perhaps there is not a need for one, its all about visualising spatial data, is there a need for a term that distinguishes between the professional and the non-professional, we would argue not.

Neogeography was 2006-2009, perhaps its time to leave it there.

The post Come in Neogeography Your Time is Up appeared first on Digital Urban.

Microsoft has announced the new Natal motion controller fro the XBox 360 at this years E3 conference. Natal is a small, device that sits underneath the screen and senors the users movement, completely eliminating the need for a controller.

This offers huge potential in the world of GIS/Urban visualisation, both in the professional realm and for communicating geography and architecture to a wider audience. Imagine a musuem based installation written for the XBox via the XDA displaying geospatial information that accepts both voice and movement commands.

Game engines and gaming devices offer a lot of potential for visualisation and simulation and with Natal that has just got more interesting.

The post XBox 360: Project Natal – Potential for Architectural and GeoVisualisation appeared first on Digital Urban.

Thanks go to our funders on the project – the National Centre for e-Social Science at Manchester University for setting this one up. Its nice to see maps used as part of a news item, MapTube was developed as part of our GeoVue grant at CASA (home of digital urban) to develop a free and easy way to share, mix and match professional maps online via the Google Maps interface.

Secondly Radio 4’s PM show is running an update to their Credit Crunch Survey – see the iPM post Credit Crunch: The return of the map.

Finally, although not a survey, MapTube also has a new map online detailing the money invested by UK councils following the collapse of the Icelandic banks.

View the Iceland Banks Money Invested Map.

Take part in the BBC Radio 4 Credit Crunch Survey.

Have your say on the Manchester Congestion Charge via BBC North West.

The post MapTube: Geographic Surveys – BBC Manchester and Radio 4 appeared first on Digital Urban.

Thanks go to our funders on the project – the National Centre for e-Social Science at Manchester University for setting this one up. Its nice to see maps used as part of a news item, MapTube was developed as part of our GeoVue grant at CASA (home of digital urban) to develop a free and easy way to share, mix and match professional maps online via the Google Maps interface.

Secondly Radio 4’s PM show is running an update to their Credit Crunch Survey – see the iPM post Credit Crunch: The return of the map.

Finally, although not a survey, MapTube also has a new map online detailing the money invested by UK councils following the collapse of the Icelandic banks.

View the Iceland Banks Money Invested Map.

Take part in the BBC Radio 4 Credit Crunch Survey.

Have your say on the Manchester Congestion Charge via BBC North West.

The post MapTube: Geographic Surveys – BBC Manchester and Radio 4 appeared first on Digital Urban.

The text covers the impact of three-dimensional displays on user interaction along with the potentialities in animation and clearly explains how to create temporally sensitive visualizations. It also explores the potential for handling mobile data and representing uncertainty; as well as the role of participatory visualization systems and exploratory methods.

It’s hallmark features include: an introduction to the diverse forms of geographic visualization which draws upon a number of theoretical perspectives and disciplines to provide an insightful commentary on new methods, techniques and tools; richly illustrated in full colour throughout, including numerous relevant case studies and accessible discussions of important visualization concepts to enable clearer understanding for non-technical audiences; and, chapters that are written by leading scholars and researchers in a range of cognate fields, including, cartography, GIScience, architecture, art, urban planning and computer graphics with case studies drawn from Europe, North America and Australia.

This book is an invaluable resource for all graduate students, researchers and professionals working in the geographic information sector, computer graphics and cartography.

You can buy the book online via our Amazon Essential Reading Store…

The post Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications Book appeared first on Digital Urban.