The State of the Art in Map-Like Visualization

Abstract

Cartographic maps have been shown to provide cognitive benefits when interpreting data in relation to a geographic location. In visualization, the term map‐like describes techniques that incorporate characteristics of cartographic maps in their representation of abstract data. However, the field of map‐like visualization is vast and currently lacks a clear classification of the existing techniques. Moreover, choosing the right technique to support a particular visualization task is further complicated, as techniques are scattered across different domains, with each considering different characteristics as map‐like. In this paper, we give an overview of the literature on map‐like visualization and provide a hierarchical classification of existing techniques along two general perspectives: imitation and schematization of cartographic maps. Each perspective is further divided into four principal categories that group common map‐like techniques along the visual primitives they affect. We further discuss this classification from a task‐centered view and highlight open research questions.