Web-based Methods for Visualizing Automobile Traffic Flow

Two of the fundamental goals of map design are to visualize geographic phenomena and present them in a way that is in synchronization with the requirements and sophistication level of the map user. Cartographers have required new techniques and tools as they tried to map, visualize, and present increasingly complex data. Dynamic cartography and Web mapping are techniques that emerged from the need to map these complex data. Automobile traffic flow over an area is a geographic phenomena that can be visualized in a dynamic, Web-based cartographic form and is of interest to different types of map users with different requirements. A traditional, non-dynamic approach to mapping traffic flow data can be restrictive. The new, dynamic, and Web-based techniques require many of the rules of traditional cartography as well as new rules and new ways of evaluating the quality and usefulness of an animated map for each user type. This book is a useful resource for cartographers, Web developers, traffic engineers, and others who are interested in Web-based mapping.