Urban economic theory states that transit improvements result in travel time savings and consequently warrant higher rents particularly with proximity to surrounding stations. This research uses the Sheppard subway corridor as a case study to test the established theories by measuring the changes to residential intensification and property values (1) as a function of time before and after the construction, and (2) as a function of distance to subway stations. Two metrics are established to observe residential intensification and property value: Dwelling Density and Value Density respectively. Dwelling Density is the number of dwellings contained in its property parcel divided by property area; Value Density is total property value of a given property parcel divided by its property area. Using obtained property sales data in four identified analysis years (1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006) and ArcGIS, spatial interpolation surfaces are generated to visualize the changes on a geographical plane through time. Dwelling and Value Density scatterplots are generated by extracting values from the interpolated surfaces and computing its distance to the nearest subway station and to major development nodes. The generated interpolated surfaces show a strong increase in Dwelling and Value Density in North York Centre which suggest that (1) planning policies succeeded in guiding residential growth, (2) a time lag is present of which the full benefits of rapid transit construction are realized, and (3) there may be positive network effects associated with the completion of the Sheppard subway. The scatterplot results demonstrated moderate change in Dwelling and Value Density at the Bayview station area and little change for the remaining stations (Bessarion, Don Mills, and Leslie) based on observations up to December 2006. The results warrant a degree of optimism about Sheppard subway’s ability to attract residential intensification and raise property values, especially given that data was analyzed only up to four years after the subway corridor began revenue service. It is recommended that a similar methodology be performed at a later date when the corridor’s ridership and surrounding development reaches maturity. A preliminary forecasting exercise determined that Dwelling and Value Density will rise, particularly surrounding stations that have since demonstrated little change in residential land use.

Mobile Terrestrial LiDAR (MTL) is an active remote sensing technology that uses laser-based ranging and global positioning systems (GPS) to record 3D point location measurements on surfaces within and near transportation corridors, such as along a railroad track or a street. This thesis examines geovisualization for improving user-oriented workflows and also examines geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) for the development of automated feature extraction. A LiDAR sensor-centric perspective during the data acquisition phase is used to organize data for the user and to transform the data into a 2D reference frame for object-oriented image analysis of MTL data. Organizing the display of MTL data relative to the scanner presented new opportunities for visualization techniques and was an effective method for communicating space that was scanned, or not, in an urban scene. It offers new avenues for quality assessment of MTL survey of urban environments by explicitly displaying gaps in data coverage. A number of techniques for navigating and visualizing data from a sensor-perspective are examined. A novel sensor-perspective transformation of MTL data from three to two dimensions enables analysis of MTL data in common GIS and image-processing environments. GEOBIA software (Definiens’ eCognition) is used to construct a procedural feature extraction workflow. The procedures are constructed with semantic classes, data processing rules and functions that drive geometric segmentation and feature recognition. Geometric regularities in urban scenes and knowledge about spatial and semantic relationships are incorporated into the rule set. The results are fluidly integrated back into a GIS environment. Investigation of alternative approaches to handling MTL data such as those carried out in this thesis are essential if this technology is to see widespread use. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2011-05-24 13:10:15.198

abstract: In today's world, unprecedented amounts of data of individual mobile objects have become more available due to advances in location aware technologies and services. Studying the spatio-temporal patterns, processes, and behavior of mobile objects is an important issue for extracting useful information and knowledge about mobile phenomena. Potential applications across a wide range of fields include urban and transportation planning, Location-Based Services, and logistics. This research is designed to contribute to the existing state-of-the-art in tracking and modeling mobile objects, specifically targeting three challenges in investigating spatio-temporal patterns and processes; 1) a lack of space-time analysis tools; 2) a lack of studies about empirical data analysis and context awareness of mobile objects; and 3) a lack of studies about how to evaluate and test agent-based models of complex mobile phenomena. Three studies are proposed to investigate these challenges; the first study develops an integrated data analysis toolkit for exploration of spatio-temporal patterns and processes of mobile objects; the second study investigates two movement behaviors, 1) theoretical random walks and 2) human movements in urban space collected by GPS; and, the third study contributes to the research challenge of evaluating the form and fit of Agent-Based Models of human movement in urban space. The main contribution of this work is the conceptualization and implementation of a Geographic Knowledge Discovery approach for extracting high-level knowledge from low-level datasets about mobile objects. This allows better understanding of space-time patterns and processes of mobile objects by revealing their complex movement behaviors, interactions, and collective behaviors. In detail, this research proposes a novel analytical framework that integrates time geography, trajectory data mining, and 3D volume visualization. In addition, a toolkit that utilizes the framework is developed and used for investigating theoretical and empirical datasets about mobile objects. The results showed that the framework and the toolkit demonstrate a great capability to identify and visualize clusters of various movement behaviors in space and time. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geography 2011

Cette thèse a été conduite dans le cadre d’une convention industrielle avec SNCF Réseau. Elle se situe dans le domaine de la géovisualisation d’informations spatio-temporelles, et porte plus particulièrement sur l’élaboration de méthodes de visualisation cartographiques adaptées à l’analyse des impacts des inondations sur le système ferroviaire. Les événements historiques sont une source d’informations importante pour la compréhension et la gestion des risques naturels. La cartographie s’est imposée comme un outil clé pour appréhender les risques dans leurs contextes territoriaux. Mais l’élaboration de visualisations cartographiques qui soient lisibles tout en restituant la complexité des processus survenus lors d’une catastrophe naturelle n’est pas aisée. Les verrous principaux sont la nécessité de représenter à la fois les dimensions spatiales et temporelles des événements issus de risques, le besoin de visualiser les effets dominos, qui conduisent à amplifier les dommages, et la volonté d’adapter les représentations aux besoins et aux capacités cognitives des utilisateurs. Ce travail a conduit à quatre contributions. La première contribution a consisté à formaliser les récits d’inondations dans une ontologie de domaine, qui décrit à la fois les événements issus d’inondations, les effets dominos et leurs impacts sur le système ferroviaire et les mesures de réaction pour ramener le système ferroviaire à l’état d’équilibre. Cinq cas d’inondations historiques ont été instanciés dans le modèle. Leur étude a permis de formuler des principes sémiologiques génériques pour cartographier les récits d’inondations, ce qui constitue la deuxième contribution. La troisième contribution est la production d’une interface de géovisualisation intégrant des représentations graphiques innovantes pour visualiser les temporalités associées aux événements. Cette interface de géovisualisation a fait l’objet d’une expérimentation auprès des experts ferroviaires. Les résultats ont validé les propositions relatives à la représentation du temps mais ont infirmé les propositions de visualisation des effets dominos. Suite à l’analyse des résultats, la quatrième contribution consiste en un modèle de protocole expérimental réutilisable, adapté au test d’interfaces de géovisualisation. / This research was led in an industrial partnership with SNCF Réseau. In the field of geovisualization of spatio-temporal information, it focuses on developing cartographical visualization methods adapted to the analysis of the impacts of floods on the railway system.Historical events are of great help to understand and manage natural risks. Cartography became a key tool to analyze risks in their territorial contexts. But making maps which remain legible while showing all the complexity of risk processes that occurred during natural disaster is not easy. The main challenges are the need to represent both the temporal and the spatial dimensions of risk events, the need to visualize domino-effect, because they often lead to worsen damages, and the will to adapt representations to the cognitive capacities of users.This research resulted in four contributions. The first one is the formalization of flood narratives in a domain ontology, which describes flood events, domino-effects, their impacts on the railway system and also response measures to restore the system. Five case studies of historical floods were instantiated in the model. Resulting from their study, the second contribution consists in generic semiology principles to visualize the narratives of floods on maps. The third contribution is a geovisualization interface, which includes original graphical representations to visualize the temporal features associated with flood events. This geovisualization interface was tested in an experiment with expert users of the railway field. Results confirmed the proposals of representation of time but disconfirm proposals of visualization of domino effects. The analysis of results led to the fourth contribution, which consists in a reusable model of an experimental procedure that is adapted to test geovisualization interfaces.

The goal of this this is to create an information system for the visualization of geographical data. The main idea is to allow users to create visualizations with their own geographical data, which they can either import from files or directly attach their own database system as a source of data and make use of the data in real-time. The result will be a new web information system that will act as a point of contact between users, geographical data, and visualizations.

West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging infectious disease that has widespread implications for public health practitioners across the world. Within a few years of its arrival in the United States the virus had spread across the North American continent. This research focuses on the development of a spatially explicit GIS-based predictive epidemiological model based on suitable environmental factors. We examined eleven commonly mapped environmental factors using both ordinary least squares regression (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR). The GWR model was utilized to ascertain the impact of environmental factors on WNV risk patterns without the confounding effects of spatial non-stationarity that exist between place and health. It identifies the important underlying environmental factors related to suitable mosquito habitat conditions to make meaningful and spatially explicit predictions. Our model represents a multi-criteria decision analysis approach to create disease risk maps under data sparse situations. The best fitting model with an adjusted R2 of 0.71 revealed a strong association between WNV infection risk and a subset of environmental risk factors including road density, stream density, and land surface temperature. This research also postulates that understanding the underlying place characteristics and population composition for the occurrence of WNV infection is important for mitigating future outbreaks. While many spatial and aspatial models have attempted to predict the risk of WNV transmission, efforts to link these factors within a GIS framework are limited. One of the major challenges for such integration is the high dimensionality and large volumes typically associated with such models and data. This research uses a spatially explicit, multivariate geovisualization framework to integrate an environmental model of mosquito habitat with human risk factors derived from socio-economic and demographic variables. Our results show that such an integrated approach facilitates the exploratory analysis of complex data and supports reasoning about the underlying spatial processes that result in differential risks for WNV. This research provides different tools and techniques for predicting the WNV epidemic and provides more insights into targeting specific areas for controlling WNV outbreaks.

Ce travail de thèse de doctorat est placé dans le domaine de la Géovisualisation utilisé pour mettre en œuvre des systèmes de aide à la décision territoriale. Ce travail de recherche est né grâce à l'établissement d’un accord entre l’Université Tor Vergata de Rome, et l’INSA (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées), de Lyon. La co-tutelle de cette thèse est née pour la nécessité d’une approche multidisciplinaire à le sujet de recherche, en profitant des compétences en matière d'urbanisme, de l’environnement et de la modélisation de territoire à l'école doctorale ‘Geoinformazione’ de l'Université de Tor Vergata, et en utilisant d’avantage les compétences dans les systèmes d'information spatiale et de la géovisualisation au laboratoire LIRIS de l'INSA. Malgré ces avantages, l’un des problèmes les plus courants en visualisation de l’information est de représenter les données d’une manière claire et compréhensible. Actuallement il ya peu de fondations scientifiques pour guider les chercheurs dans la conception visuelle de données spatiales ; il existe des méthodes systématiques limitée pour évaluer l'efficacité des solutions proposées. Dans ce travail de recherche de doctorat, des contributions seront fournis à la création d'une méthode d'évaluation systématique pour évaluer et développer des affichages visuels efficaces. Dans ce contexte l’objectif de la recherche était de trouver une méthode simple et empirique - un test en ligne - qui pourrait être facilement reproductible pour differentes scenarios, pour soutenir l’administration publique dans différents contextes et pour différentes tâches. / This PhD research work is placed in the domain of Geovisualization used to implement Territorial Intelligence and decision support systems. This research work was born through the establishment of an agreement between Tor Vergata University, Rome, and INSA (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées), Lyon. The co-supervision of this thesis was born from the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach to the research topic, taking advantage of the skills in urban planning, environment and territory modeling at the Geoinformation doctoral school of Tor Vergata University, and taking advantage of the skills in Spatial Information Systems and Geovisualization at the LIRIS Laboratory of INSA. The motivation that led us to deal with this research topic was the perception of a lack of systematic methods and universally approved empirical experiments in data visualization domain. The experiments should consider different typologies of data, different environmental contexts, different indicators and methods of representations, etc., in order to support expert users in decision making, in the urban and territorial planning and in the implementation of environmental policies. In modern societies, we have to deal with a great amount of data every day and Geovisualization permits the management, exploration and display of big and heterogeneous data in an interactive way that facilitates decision making processes. Geovisualization gives the opportunity to the user to change the visual appearance of the maps, to explore different layers of data and to highlight problems in some areas by the citizens. Despite these advantages, one of the most common problems in Information Visualization is to represent data in a clear and comprehensible way. Spatial data have a complex structure that includes spatial component, thematic attributes, and often the temporal component Actually there are limited scientific foundations to guide researchers in visual design of spatial data, and there are limited systematic and standard methods to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions proposed. In this Phd research work, some contributions will be provided to the creation of a systematic assessment method to evaluate and to develop effective geovisualization displays. An empirical evaluation test is proposed to assess the effectiveness of some map displays, analyzing the use of three elements of visual design: 1. the spatial indicators to be represented and their context of visualization, 2. the physical dimensions of map displays, 3. the visual variables to represent different layers of information.

A presente tese propõe uma metodologia de vídeo-mapeamento móvel georreferenciado a partir do desenvolvimento de protótipos que utilizam uma Interface de Geovisualização Multimídia para sincronizar o registro (em vídeo) de um local ou evento de interesse com a rota percorrida pelo veículo de inspeção (sobre mapa ou imagem), através da coleta de dados por sensores móveis: câmera digital, microfone, receptor GNSS e bússola digital. A interface permite a integração desses sensores com os atuais serviços de mapas digitais disponíveis na web. Sistemas como esse melhoram significativamente as análises temporais, a gestão e a tomada de decisão. A interface proposta e desenvolvida no presente trabalho é útil para muitas aplicações como ferramenta de monitoramento e inventário. Esta interface pode ser entendida como o componente visual de um sistema de mapeamento móvel ou como um sistema cartográfico alternativo ou complementar, para aplicações em que a precisão geométrica do receptor GNSS, na modalidade de navegação, é suficiente e sua acessibilidade, um fator competitivo. As aplicações desenvolvidas no presente trabalho foram duas: um sistema de monitoramento e inventário de placas de sinalização viária e um sistema de monitoramento de cheias/secas e inventário de propriedades na borda de reservatórios de hidroelétricas, ambos em pleno funcionamento. / This thesis proposes a methodology of geo-referenced mobile video-mapping from the development of prototypes that use a Geovisualization Multimedia Interface to synchronize the record (on video) of a place or event of interest to the route traveled by the inspection vehicle (on map or image), by collecting data from mobile sensors: digital camera, microphone, GNSS receiver and digital compass. The interface allows the integration of these sensors with existing digital maps available in web services. Systems such as this significantly improves the temporal analysis, management and decision making. The interface proposed and developed in this study is useful for many applications such as monitoring and inventory tool. This interface can be understood as the visual component of a mobile mapping system or mapping system as an alternative or complement, for applications in which the geometric precision of the GNSS navigation receiver is sufficient and its accessibility, a competitive factor. Applications developed in this study were twofold: a monitoring system and inventory road sign posts and a monitoring system of flood / drought and inventory of properties on the edge of hydroelectric reservoirs, both in full operation.

Trafikverket har ansvar över den långsiktiga infrastrukturplaneringen samt drift av Sveriges vägar. En viktig faktor för säkerheten på våra vägar är vädret. Genom att kunna förutspå temperaturer och nederbörd längs vägar går det att minska risker i trafiken. Det finns mätstationer som mäter vägväder längs de vägar där det är störst risk för halka och snödrev. En mjukvara används för övervakning av väderstationerna och kvalitetskontroll av avvikelser i vägväderdatat. Trafikverket vill byta ut befintligt system för kvalitetskontroll mot ett mer användarvänligt system. I detta examensarbete skapades en prototyp till ett nytt användargränssnitt för kvalitetskontroll. Gränssnittet utvecklades i enlighet med aspekter för användbar webbdesign samt kriterier som togs fram i förstudien vid utvärdering av den befintliga kvalitetskontrollen. Det nya användargränssnittet visar avvikelser som geovisualiseringar och det utvecklades med mjukvarorna PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Geoserver, OpenLayers samt GeoExt. Användargränssnittets användbarhet utvärderades med en heuristisk utvärdering av målgruppen som det är designat för. Utvärderingen bestod av användartest samt frågeformulär. Resultatet från utvärderingen visade att deltagarnas nöjdhet med gränssnittets design varierade. Slutsatsen var att användargränssnittets användbarhet är godtagbar men att gränssnittet har förbättringspotential. / The Swedish Transport Administration is accountable for the long-term planning and management of the Swedish road infrastructure. An important factor for the safety on our roads is the weather. By predicting the weather it is possible to reduce the risk for accidents. There are stations that measure weather conditions along the roads with the greatest risk of slipperiness and snow drift. Monitoring of these weather station is executed with a  software for quality control of data deviations. The Swedish Transport Administration wants to replace the present interface for quality control with a more user-friendly system. In this thesis, a prototype for a new interface for quality control was created. The interface was developed in accordance with aspects for useful web design and criterias produced in the preliminary study which evaluated the present interface. The new interface displays data deviations as geovisualizations. The interface was developed by using the PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Geoserver, OpenLayers and GeoExt softwares. The usability of the interface was evaluated by the target audience it is designed for. The evaluation consisted of a heuristic evaluation with user tests and questionnaires. The outcome revealed that participants' satisfaction varied. The conclusion was that the usability of the interface is acceptable but that it has potential for improvement.

A presente tese propõe uma metodologia de vídeo-mapeamento móvel georreferenciado a partir do desenvolvimento de protótipos que utilizam uma Interface de Geovisualização Multimídia para sincronizar o registro (em vídeo) de um local ou evento de interesse com a rota percorrida pelo veículo de inspeção (sobre mapa ou imagem), através da coleta de dados por sensores móveis: câmera digital, microfone, receptor GNSS e bússola digital. A interface permite a integração desses sensores com os atuais serviços de mapas digitais disponíveis na web. Sistemas como esse melhoram significativamente as análises temporais, a gestão e a tomada de decisão. A interface proposta e desenvolvida no presente trabalho é útil para muitas aplicações como ferramenta de monitoramento e inventário. Esta interface pode ser entendida como o componente visual de um sistema de mapeamento móvel ou como um sistema cartográfico alternativo ou complementar, para aplicações em que a precisão geométrica do receptor GNSS, na modalidade de navegação, é suficiente e sua acessibilidade, um fator competitivo. As aplicações desenvolvidas no presente trabalho foram duas: um sistema de monitoramento e inventário de placas de sinalização viária e um sistema de monitoramento de cheias/secas e inventário de propriedades na borda de reservatórios de hidroelétricas, ambos em pleno funcionamento. / This thesis proposes a methodology of geo-referenced mobile video-mapping from the development of prototypes that use a Geovisualization Multimedia Interface to synchronize the record (on video) of a place or event of interest to the route traveled by the inspection vehicle (on map or image), by collecting data from mobile sensors: digital camera, microphone, GNSS receiver and digital compass. The interface allows the integration of these sensors with existing digital maps available in web services. Systems such as this significantly improves the temporal analysis, management and decision making. The interface proposed and developed in this study is useful for many applications such as monitoring and inventory tool. This interface can be understood as the visual component of a mobile mapping system or mapping system as an alternative or complement, for applications in which the geometric precision of the GNSS navigation receiver is sufficient and its accessibility, a competitive factor. Applications developed in this study were twofold: a monitoring system and inventory road sign posts and a monitoring system of flood / drought and inventory of properties on the edge of hydroelectric reservoirs, both in full operation.