Stylized rendering in cartography – MAPSTYLE

As users we all have experienced the uniformity of cartographic representations. Map series in well-known styles help users to better understand the geographic territory once they are used to the map style. Yet, the increasing availability of varied geographic data and the need to design custom maps (paper or digital) lead to rethink the cartographic representation. The MAPSTYLE project aims at exploring the possibilities offered by both cartography and expressive rendering, and also at proposing original and new cartographic representations.
Cartographic representation involves the choice of graphic signs to represent geographic information. The difficulty of building a map style lies on the control of the relationship between a graphic sign and its meaning that conveys a visual message linked to the geographic space. The message desired by the cartographer has to be readable and understandable by the target audience. The specification of the style comes in the first place from the principles of theoretical cartography, cultural habits, conventions and experience of users on the readability of a map. It also comes from technical constraints that have led to some choices of representation only to facilitate the production and reduce the cost of the maps. Therefore, offering original and different styles means to deal with automation and maps generation efficiency.
Through this project, we target two types of needs. On the one hand, mapping agencies produce series paper maps with some renderings that are still derived from drawings made by hand 50 years ago: for example, rocky areas in the series TOP25 (to 1/25000) of the French Institut Géographique National (IGN). The rendering of these rocky areas must be automated and its effectiveness retained to meet the requirements of hikers safety. On the other hand, Internet mapping tools allow any user to become a cartographer. However, they provide default styles that cannot be changed (GeoPortal, Google Maps) or that are editable but without any assistance or expertise (CloudMade). In such cases, as in the case of mobile applications, we identify the need to offer users means to design map styles more personalized and more attractive to meet their expectations (decision-making, recreation, etc.) and their tastes. The latter must be regarded as an industrial opportunity in making innovative proposals on the market of maps on the Internet and mobile application design.
MAPSTYLE proposes to model the style of maps (task 1). We propose to explore three ways of designing map styles: the synthesis of rocky areas (task 2), the raster/vector data co-visualization (task 3) and the design of maps "by example" (task 4). To meet the requirement of effectiveness in mapping, the proposed map styles will be systematically assessed by indicators and users tests (task 5).