Rendering Effective Route Maps

From Success Stories in Scientific Visualization Wiki

Three route maps for the same 35 mile route rendered by (left) a standard computermapping system, (middle) a person, and (right) LineDrive, an automated route map rendering system. The standard computergenerated map is difficult to use because its large, constant scale factor causes the short roads to vanish and because it is cluttered with extraneous details such as city names, parks, and roads that are far away from the route. In contrast, the hand-drawn map emphasizes the most essential information for following the route. Hand-drawn maps exaggerate the lengths of short roads, regularize turning angles and simplify road shape to ensure that all the roads and turning points are visible. LineDrive is based on these cognitive design principles and as a result it produces maps that similarly emphasize the most important information for following the route.

M. Agrawala and C. Stolte, "Rendering effective route maps: Improving usability through generalization," SIGGRAPH 2001, pp. 241-250. 2001.