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Publications in Scientific Journals:

F. Ledermann:
"Analysing Digital Maps Online: A Reverse Engineering Approach";
GI_Forum, 2018 (2018), 2; 12 pages.



English abstract:
The age of "Big Data" and rapid online publishing brings with it a new need for verifying and understanding digital media. Cartographers are specifically interested in the analysis of maps published online, both with regards to their adherence to established cartographic techniques and for identifying innovative approaches to geographic visualization. But traditional manual cartographic analysis methods, based solely on inspecting the map as an image, are limited; neither can they keep up with the volume of new maps coming online every day, nor can they answer all questions about the process of creation of the map. This paper proposes a novel approach to analysing maps by taking into account the source code of the cartographic program producing the map image. It is argued that such a method can surpass manual analysis in both its potential to facilitate semi- or fully automated processes as well as the depth of insight it is able to give into the complete socio-technical assemblage of a digital map artefact.

Keywords:
digital cartography, web maps, reverse engineering, transformations, deconstruction


"Official" electronic version of the publication (accessed through its Digital Object Identifier - DOI)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1553/giscience2018_02_s119

Electronic version of the publication:
https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_270822.pdf


Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.