The giCentre is engaged in high quality research and education involving the use of Geographic Information (GI).
We develop the theory, practice and technology that support Geographic Information Science and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), offer innovative and high quality learning opportunities and play a leading role in the international GI research community.
Anna Broberg of Aalto University, Helsinki is visiting the giCentre to discuss her work on the analysis of softGIS data and visualization methods to support this activity.
Anna is participating in the MSc GeoVizualization module and has presented some of her analysis of geo-referenced perceptions of Helsinki and Espoo, which we are analyzing according to the characteristics of those who register them.
The work is part of the Urban Happiness project, which has identified relationships between density of urban environment and registered response amongst some groups of respondents.
Anna-Lena Kornfeld of the g2Lab at HafenCity University Hamburg is visiting the giCentre to discuss her work on visual encodings to map sounds.
Anna presented her preliminary ideas and a proposed set of style guides for audio cartography at a giCentre seminar.
We have been discussing and developing these subsequently with Anna to develop her ideas, which promise effective means of mapping noise, soundscape and sound propagation in urban environments.
Jason Dykes and Robert Radburn delivered a seminar showcasing their vizLib work at Loughborough University Library.
The event aimed to communicate best practice in analysing and visualizing and included presentations by Paula Forster and Sharon Pye of Leicestershire County Council on innovative marketing and analytical methods being used in Leicestershire.
Library Services managers from across the country attended the seminar which included presentation of some of the techniques and findings developed by Rob and Jason through the ESRC funded UPTAP project.
Aidan, Jo and Jason attended the kick-off meeting for the JISC funded VRE Rapid Innovation programme at the University of London.
Jason presented a short introduction to the vizTweets a research project which is now underway.
The event was a useful showcase of VRE RI projects and formed part of JISC's dev8D developer days, which Aidan attended.
Aidan Slingsby and Jason Dykes visited the Interaction Design Centre at Middlesex University.
They presented developing giCentre ideas on Spatial Interaction Design with a series of applications, prototypes and guiding principles.
Following the seminar the UK Visual Analytics scene and visualization education were discussed with Prof. William Wong and colleagues at Middlesex.
giCentre reseachers have had five papers accepted for the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference which will be held at UCL in April: two on visualising the OAC geodemographic classifier [pdf and pdf]), innovative map legends [pdf], visual analysis of library use [pdf] and uncertainty in home locations from volunteered geographical information [pdf] .
Aidan Slingsby and Jason Dykes attended the Willis Research Network's quarterly meeting in London.
Aidan presented recent giCentre work and Jason and Aidan participated in a series of meetings with other WRN members, some of the world's largest insurers/reinsurers, catastrophe modelling companies and spatial data providers.
Various key issues were discussed and research opportunities identified relating to the role of spatial data and data visualisation in the insurance industry.
On 21 Jan 2010 Jonathan Raper and David Mountain played host to Geomob - the London Geo/Mobile Developers Meetup Group - at City University.
Speakers included Andrew Eland of Google UK's Mobile Team, Julianne Pearce of Blast Theory, Laurence Penney discussing SnapMap and Andy Walker of Public Earth.
The final talk was given by Mikel Maron discussing OpenStreetMap's Response to the Haiti Earthquake.
Jo Wood, Jason Dykes and Aidan Slingsby's research has been recognised in the university's annual Staff Research Prize scheme. They received a "commendation" for their novel approaches to information visualisation, their engagement with data users and their research outputs over the past year which include best paper (GISRUK), honorable mention (IEEE InfoVis), visual analytics prize (VAST) and "KML in research" prize (Google).
Jonathan Raper chaired the launch of the London Datastore through which huge quantities of previously unavailable data about London is being made available to the public.
A number of high profile speakers contributed to the event at City Hall including Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) and Aneesh Chopra (Chief Technology Officer of the United States).
Jo Wood and Aidan Slingsby attended the AGI annual Awards Dinner and were presented with the AGI Best of GISRUK Paper award for their paper with Jason Dykes and Robert Radburn on OD Maps. The paper was presented by Jo last April at GISRUK09 in Durham and they have just submitted a full paper based on this work that is now under review.
The latest version of LandSerf has been released after extensive testing.
New features include the LandScript scripting language for macro programming and map algebra processing, flow magnitude calculations, new map projections, significantly enhanced Ordnance Survey NTF and MasterMap import and USB GPS communication.
The conference was hosted by Durham University and the giCentre contributions were a nice mix of projects resulting from MSc dissertations, PhD research and funded projects.
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