2016 IEEE 14th Intl Conf on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, 14th Intl Conf on Pervasive Intelligence

and Computing, 2nd Intl Conf on Big Data Intelligence and Computing and Cyber Science and Technology Congress

Scalable Interactive Geo Visualization Platform for GIS Data Analysis

Lekha R. Nair, Sarath Saleem, Sujala D. Shetty

Department of Computer Science
BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
Dubai, UAE
e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract—Visualization of geographic data finds enormous diagrams. This work aims to provide an online platform to
applications in location finding, disaster management, resource generate map based interactive visualization on geographic
allocation, mobility pattern detection etc. In this Big Data era, data provided, catering to various user requirements, and
location information is embedded in most of the available data. which can be published..
While many general purpose visualization tools available today
fail to scale when handling big data and also lack visually II. GEOGRAPHIC VISUALIZATION/ GEO VISUALIZATION
appealing output, this paper aims to design and implement a
web based application that offers Geographic visualization
Geographic Information systems (GIS) are those systems
platform for users to create and publish interactive geographic which enables to envision the geographic information of
maps based on large static as well as streaming geo datasets. your data so that the data can be queried to receive results in
The application is capable of integrating, analyzing and geographic map forms. GIS were initially meant for storage,
visualizing Big Data from a Geographic Information Systems retrieval and display of geographic information [2], but
(GIS) perspective and here the application is tested with urban analysis of spatial data is gaining more importance now.
data sets and twitter streaming data to perform visualization Apart from its use as a navigation aid, GIS have widespread
and data driven analysis of mobility patterns and social uses in weather predictions, land and other resources
networking activity. The application can be deployed in the planning, population forecasting, migration pattern
cloud and can be accessed by any browser on any smart device. identification etc.
According to [3], Geo visualization integrates
Keywords- Geographic Visualization; GIS data; Online methodologies from scientific/information visualization,
Interactive Visualization; Big Data Visualization; Cartography; exploratory data analysis and Geographic Information
Maps. Systems to deliver tools, techniques and processes for visual
exploration, analysis, creation and presentation of geo spatial
I. INTRODUCTION data. It involves conversion of geographic data or location
Data Visualization, the pictorial or diagrammatic information to a format suitable for map plotting, creating
representation of data, has been in use to tell stories since tools for the visualization process, analytical study of the geo
ancient times. The history of visualization from early ages to data to determine what is to mapped and mapping the
modern times is detailed in [1]. Humans can comprehend a information to the coordinates. While traditional maps being
picture in an easier and faster way and hence proper data mostly static, modern maps demands more functionalities
visualization that expose hidden patterns in data can lead to like zooming, panning, ability to drill down or detailing,
quick and intelligent decision making compared to analysis interactivity.
by other means on data stored in databases, reports or
spreadsheets. With the availability of many tools, III. RELATED WORKS
visualization of small datasets never seem to be a problem. Information visualization techniques presents data and
But in the current Big Data era, we have to face the related patterns in visual form that is understandable and that
challenge of dealing with extremely large and highly provides new insights while supporting user interactions [4].
complex datasets as the present day visualization tools fail to Many available visualization tools have to be downloaded
handle huge volume, varied velocity or variety of Big Data. and installed in the system of user before performing
Modern data visualization demands programmatic approach visualization on GIS data, which takes memory and hence
to achieve dynamic nature, high interactivity, identification not suitable for memory restricted systems like smartphones.
of key variables and hidden patterns among large datasets On the other hand web based visualization tools can reduce
exposing its current focus and to perform reliable the data volume, computing resources and hence the memory
predictions. overload on user’s side [5]. In a web based environment
Interactivity provided by the visualization which deals maps becomes dynamic, interactive and reachable to a wide
with the ability of a user to directly seek, interact with or section of users as a communication tool [6]. Online
modify the underlying data, is a key element in the analysis and visualization of spatial data is topic of work
visualization effectiveness. Interactive nature of visualization given in [7]. In [8] a framework for online visualization of
opens up various perspectives of the same data leading to a 3D city models which utilizes CityGML, an xml based
clear picture than that obtain from monotonous static

978-1-5090-4065-0/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE 885

886
DOI 10.1109/DASC-PICom-DataCom-CyberSciTec.2016.152
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on October 23,2024 at 12:58:40 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 format for storage and exchange of city models, and with the visualization code module which consist of
X3DOM, a DOM based HTML5/ X3D integration model. rendering engine and the drawing canvas. The rendering
In [9] authors explain a spatial data analysis and engine and two way binding handle the display of processed
visualization system built as an extra layer on the TerraFly map as well as live interactions from the user.
[10] map API. In [11], GIS data from an intelligent transport
system (ITS) is used to visualize and analyze the
performance measures related to the transportation
management center is explained. Though it is an example of
GIS data visualization, it is not a general purpose one. A
visualization technique for spatiotemporal data is discussed
in [12] that allows multi attribute visualization. Usage of GIS
data for enhanced road map visualization is explained in
[13], which is also meant for a specific purpose.
IV. GEO VISUALIZATION APPLICATION
This work aims to develop a web based application
which receives GIS data, integrate and analyze the same and
deliver interactive map based visualization as per user
requirement which can be published. The application is
capable of handling and analyzing social networking activity,
mobility patterns, route mapping, resource consumption etc.
Development of this application involves usage of several
new open source cutting edge software tools. The approach
followed in this work involves choosing the right Figure 1. Architectural Diagram
representation strategy to the problem at hand while
including the required information attributes and developing
an appropriate and accurate model.. C. Choice and Usage of supportive frameworks
A. Dataset The web based application is built on top of various
HTML5 technologies. It uses nodejs as backend server and
Visualizations can be created based on existing data sets MongoDB as the database. Leaflet.js , Mapbox, knockout.js
in the application library or user supplied geo datasets. are used in the front end to create visualization. The
Openly available urban datasets are used for testing this
application is to be hosted in Google cloud and can be
application. An example is the usage of metro extracts of
Open Street Map (OSM) data of Dubai-Abu Dhabi available accessed through any modern web browser.
in GeoJson format at https://mapzen.com/data to create HTML5 offers better connectivity with server, offline
visualizations related to the city, like mapping Dubai Abu operations, options for local storage of webpages, diverse
Dhabi aero ways. There is also provision to connect to presentation schemes, varied device access, improved speed
twitter to access and plot geolocation of tweets. The NoSQL etc. This application is able to leverage the power of
database MongoDB [13] is used to store the data. HTML5 compared to similar applications built around
other technologies.
B. The Architecture Nodejs [14] is one of the prevalent web servers in the
This visualization platform is having a Single Page current web development scenario mainly due to its event
Application (SPA) architecture as shown in figure 1. driven nature, simple configurations and scalability.
The frontend components of the application are grouped JavaScript being its programing language, web application
into three main layers. The data layer is responsible for developers find it comfortable to use the same language to
connecting to the data sources and its processing. Initial data develop end to end features of a project. The main reason
filter converts the data to an application compatible format for choosing nodejs for this work is its event driven nature
and hand it over to the GIS detection module which analyze as it increases request handling capability drastically. For
the data and identify underlying GIS patterns. Urban data
this work, the main source of traffic will the public requests
plugins handle the urban data information and decoupling as
of the published projects of the application, which can be
different layers.
The data parser module in the second layer handle the effectively handled by nodejs. Admin user sessions and
parsing and error correction of the data and convert it into a project management requests will also be handled by nodejs
plotting ready form. Data storage module handle storage of server. Server codebase is divided into sections like request
data and map relation manager module handle user and handlers, functional modules and data access layers.
publishing management. In the frontend of the visualization platform application,
The third layer is the visualization layer which consists of a combination of several open source mapping tools are
data-view module that creates the views, structures, map- integrated to offer users an easy to draw canvas with few
objects and data points from the data. This will be interacting mouse clicks. The application structure is created using

887
886

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on October 23,2024 at 12:58:40 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Knockout.js, a compact javascript library meant to create user. The published project can be rendered to any public
interactive display and editor user interfaces, with a Model- user who is viewing that public URL through the browser.
View-View Model [15](MVVM) design pattern Depending on the options chosen by the creator users can
Leaflet is a light-weight javascript library for creating interact with the map in different ways. The general data
interactive maps suitable in mobile environment where display methods include adding markers, drawing the map
memory and other resources are restricted. Here leaflet is with polygons respective to data, adding circles and
mainly used to handle GeoJSON data and to plot the same rectangular areas with selected colors on the map etc.
to respective maps. The basic free version of Mapbox, Publishable interactive Maps created using urban dataset
which is a mapping platform for developers, is also utilized of Dubai-Abu Dhabi is shown in figures 2 and 3. Figure 2
shows the map of water areas of Dubai and Abu Dhabi,
for zooming and related options in this application.
while figure 3 displays Dubai Abu Dhabi aero-ways.
The datasets used by the application need not necessarily
be relational in nature. Projects saves the working data as it
is and retrieve and display the same without much
modifications. Hence a document oriented database is
required for this work and MongoDB the nosql open-source
database is chosen which provides high availability and
automatic scaling. MongoDB offers horizontal scalability
and automatic sharding. MongoDB stores information as
JSON-like field and value sets. The GIS data sets are stored
as it is with a link in the data filed for the required tables.
Most of the map plotting data is on GeoJSON and will not
be converted into database field.
D. Implementation
This geo visualization platform is designed as a single page
application resulting in a flexible solution in consideration
of usability and performance. Here the project page once
Figure 2. Map of Dubai-Abu Dhabi Water Areas
loaded will not be reloaded on saving or editing and in this
way bandwidth is conserved. Initially loaded resources will Application includes provision to add data through
be retained in the browser and extra resources if needed are connectors and enabling data addition on maps by the user.
loaded dynamically upon user requests. The edited or added Connectors include social networking applications APIs or
data will be saved to the backend dynamically on the fly. any custom API source of GIS data. Another method is to
User can upload new data or add any interactive feature in it enable addition of data to maps by users so that public users
without navigating from the current state of the project. can also contribute new data to the map by following the
Dynamic selection of maps and themes, customization of application guidelines
markers and highlights can also be performed in this way.
All requests are made through AJAX and the server
responds with the aid of a REST service.
In the frontend, different frameworks are utilized for
templating, data binding, map rendering, data parsing etc.
The application structure is created with knockoutjs and
leafleat.js handles plotting of GeoJSON data to respective
maps.
V. APPLICATION USE CASES

A. General Use Cases

This web application is a decoupled from any specific
functionality or methodology of creating visualization. The
core functionally is to bind GIS data with a geographical
map. The application user can decide on the kind of
visualization he needs. The map customization options can
lead to various design options and heterogeneous maps. Figure 3. Map of Dubai-Abu Dhabi Aero-Ways
GeoJSON data format is the standard data exchange
protocol across the application and user can add any
GeoJSON data to his project and choose from the various
options that the project wants to be exposed to the public

888
887

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on October 23,2024 at 12:58:40 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 B. Social-centric data visualization insights with just few mouse clicks, which can be effectively
Geo data can be collected from social networking utilized in areas like traffic control, route mapping, crisis
activities of users and in the current application prototype, management, mobility analysis etc.
the feature of connecting to twitter API is integrated. Tweets This work can be expanded to integrate with WebGL for
contains some textual data and related tags and APIs are provision of 3D visualization and plotting algorithms can be
available to collect these public tweets. The response data developed for 2D to 3D rendering engine. Support for
from the API contains the geographical information of the heterogeneous data types other than GeoJSON and inclusion
user along with the textual information. This data can be of advanced analytic options can be implemented in the
filtered against the context of required information which can future. Facility of search option in published maps is another
be visualized on the map. area where work can be proceeded further. As the dataset for
Two types of rendering is available, static data and visualization becomes bigger, application can use Hadoop
streaming data. Static data is collected through the API and Distributed File System (HDFS) to store data.
stored in GeoJSON format which can be used like any other
REFERENCES
data. Streaming API provides live streaming data which
converted in to GeoJSON format in real time and plotted in
the map. Streaming data visualization is having wide [1] M. Friendly, "A brief history of data visualization," in Handbook of
data visualization, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 15-56.
applications including live traffic analysis, crisis analysis or
analyzing real time public response to a particular event. [2] S. Fotheringham, R. Peter (Eds.), Spatial analysis and GIS, CRC
Press, 2013.
C. Data collection and visualization by crowdsourcing [3] A. M. MacEachren and K. Menno-Jan, "Research challenges in
geovisualization," Cartography and Geographic Information Science,
The feature of allowing users to add data on the map vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 3-12, 2001.
opens up a new source for data collection. Data thus added is [4] Y. Zhang and T. Li, "DClusterE: A framework for evaluating and
used for rendering maps and at the same instant it is understanding document clustering," ACM Transactions on
available to all the public users. Any new data addition will Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST), vol. 24, no. 2, p. 3, 2012.
be shown across all the active viewers. Each map has its own [5] X. Li, L. Di, W. Han, P. Zhao and U Dadi, "Sharing geoscience
way of adding data, the instructions and methods for data algorithms in a web service-oriented environment," Computers &
addition will be provided along with rendered view of the Geosciences, vol. 36, no. 8, p. 1060–1068, 2010.
map. Based on the way the admin designed the user maps, [6] S. Dragicevic, "The potential of Web-based GIS," Journal of
Geographical Systems, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 79-81, 2004.
data addition can be done with a few mouse clicks or by
[7] Y. Lu, M. Zhang, T. Li, Y. Guang and N. Rishe, "Online spatial data
filling some information fields. analysis and visualization system," in Proceedings of the ACM
These kind of maps can be very helpful for survey, SIGKDD Workshop on Interactive Data Exploration, 2013.
getting a detailed view of calamities or emergencies like [8] B. Mao and B. Yifang, " Online Visualization of 3D City Model
flood, earthquake or epidemics. By integrating the bits and Using CityGML and X3DOM," Cartographica: The International
pieces of data supplied by various users can provide a clear Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, vol. 46, no.
picture of the actual situation. As an example, with wireless 2, pp. 109-114, 2011.
internet connection, people isolated in floods can supply geo [9] M. Zang et al., "TerraFly GeoCloud: An Online Spatial Data Analysis
data of their local area to the application and with the and Visualization System," ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems
and Technology, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 34:1-24, 2015.
combined data from multiple users, severity of the calamity
[10] R. Naphtali, G. Martha, S. Andriy and G. Scott, "TerraFly: A tool for
can be understood. In a real life scenario, when the South visualizing and dispensing geospatial data," Imaging Notes, vol. 20,
Indian city of Chennai was hit by the worst floods in no. 2, pp. 22-23, 2005.
December 2015 claiming hundreds of lives and thousands of [11] H. Khaled and Q. Cesar, "Geovisualization of Archived ITS Data-
people got stranded with no food or electricity, the Case Studies," IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation
information collected through crowdsourcing was used to Systems, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 104-112, 2016.
map the flooded streets based on severity to have a clear [12] SY. Kim et al., "Bristle Maps: A Multivariate Abstraction Technique
picture of the situation aiding relief work.. for Geovisualization," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and
Computer Graphics , vol. 19, no. 9, pp. 1438 - 1454, 2013.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE [13] D. Wilkie, J. Sewall and M. C. Lin, "Transforming GIS Data into
Functional Road Models for Large-Scale Traffic Simulation," IEEE
In this work, a web based single page application was Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics , vol. 18, no. 6,
developed and hosted on google cloud that provides a pp. 890 - 901, 2012.
geographic visualization platform that can be used by the [14] "Node.js v5.9.1 Documentation," [Online]. Available:
clients to create customizable interactive geographic maps https://nodejs.org/api/. [Accessed 15 December 2015].
based on GIS datasets and publish the same. It offers the [15] "The MongoDB 3.2 Manual," [Online]. Available:
crowd sourcing provision of data addition by users which https://docs.mongodb.org/manual/. [Accessed 15 December 2015].
can be shared among users and it is capable of handling [16] "Knockout Observables," [Online] Available:
http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/observables.html. [Accessed 15
static as well streaming data. The application is mainly December 2015].
targeting the possibilities of big urban datasets to gain

889
888

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on October 23,2024 at 12:58:40 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.