A geological metaphor for geospatial-temporal data analysis

To provide visual access to geospatial-temporal data, existing systems usually highlight the data´s spatial, temporal and topical distribution individually in separated, but linked views. Because this design often complicates queries that concern multiple data aspects and also involves more user interaction, in this paper, we present a geological metaphor that aims to combine relations between orthogonal data aspects. We describe how our adopted landscape metaphor intuitively depicts global and local relationships based on its surface, glyph augmentation and inner sediment structure. We validate the geological metaphor with case studies, compare it with existing systems and describe how it can be integrated into those as an alternative map view.