Mobile map applications based on user generated content for cartographic communication

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Dirk Burghardt
• Subject Area: Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Cartography
• Term: from 2010 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 184365011

The ongoing technological development in the domain of geoinformation processing has a huge impact on the handling of and interaction with cartographic information. This becomes obvious with the capturing of spatial data, as well as with the presentation of maps at a variety of output media. Cartographic applications on mobile devices have enormous research and development potential, because they provide the combination of interactivity and mobility in extension to paper maps, thus they allow an adaptive, personalised information exchange. The main goal of this research project is the development of service‐based software components for the creation of interactive, mobile maps. The example of use will be the provision of spatial information services for tourist activities in the pilot region Saxon Switzerland. The access on distributed, heterogeneous data sources is essential which are provided increasingly by the user in the Web2.0. The main focus in the project is given to the usage of semantic web technologies, especially the Resource Description Framework (RDF) applied to the modelling and storage of spatial data. Hierarchical data structures and methods for real‐time generalisation should be applied for the automated derivation of scale dependent, adaptive maps. Based on these methods quasi‐continuous zooming will be supported as well as the removal of local overlapping conflicts. Furthermore interactive techniques has to be developed and implemented, which provides the possibility to control the amount of presented information and the cartographic presentation style by the user. As a result the project contributes to the basic research in the area of adaptive, mobile map presentation, whereby the user becomes a central position within the cartographic communication process.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants