Proceedings of the 21 st International Cartographic Conference (I CC) Durban, South Africa, 10 ñ 16 August 2003 ëCartographic Renaissance í Hosted by The International Cartographic Association (ICA) ISBN: 0-958-46093-0 Produced by: Document Transformation Technologies MOUNTAIN CARTOGRAPHY: STATE-OF-THE-ART AND CURRENT ISSUES Hurni, L. 1 , H‰berling, C. 1 and Kriz, K. 2 1 Institute of Cartography, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), ETH Hoenggerberg, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. E-mail: [email protected] and [email protected]g.ethz.ch 2 Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna, Universitaetsstrasse 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria . E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT The main intention of the paper is to cover the evaluatio n of the cartographic modelling and visualisation demands of the user community with respect to broad range of spatial, mountain-related applications, and to assess new user groups and their demands. It is obvious that the different branches require specific techniques and technologies. Furthermore, the analysis and output of the results will no longer be limited to paper maps, but also to new devices like screen displays and Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and multime dia applications such as web-maps or CD-ROM-based map applications. Following this assessment, a basic infrastructure (adaptable toolbox) allowing the processing of such thematic data will be proposed, with emphasis on the cartographic visualisation, interaction and publication. Furthermore, the paper proposes and shows existing demonstrator applications from different fields of applications proving the ease of adaptation of the above infrastructure. The pa per is intended to serve as a description of the state-of- the-art of mountain cartography and as a new base for discussion of future terms of reference for the ICA Commission on Mountain Cartography. 1. WHY MOUNTAIN CARTOGRAPHY? The social and economic importance of mountain regions has been increasing in the last few years. A growing use of alpine areas as leisure parks can be observed in the servi ce societies of Europe, North Am erica and Japan. In Central and South-eastern Europe, the Alpine and other mountainous countries play a major role for transit traffic between Northern and Southern Europe. In third world countries the population pressure leads to a more intensive settlement and economic harnessing of mountain regions. Finally, the number of natural hazards with devastating consequences for man is increasing in all of these areas due to this pressure and partially due to climatic influences. Altogether, the combination of these developments will create an importa nt demand for economic, societal, cultural and scientific action in mountainous areas in Europe during this century. Together with the growing importance of mountain areas, the demand for adequate cartographic base data with respect to its contents, application, graphic design and the media is also increasing. Especially th e analysis and visualisation of a large spectrum of new themes requires new cartographic methods and approaches which go beyond classic topographic and thematic cartography. In this domain, cartogr aphic research stands only at its beginnings. The degree of automation of major production steps can still be increased significantly. Todayís Geographical Information Systems (GIS) still lack cartographically adequate and sophisticat ed visualisation functions. Therefore the development of specialised tools ñ especially for difficult visualisation tasks of mountainous terrain ñ is a foremost task of cartographic application developers. 2. THE ICA COMMISSION ON MOUNTAIN CARTOGRAPHY During the 19 th International Cartographic Conference in Otta wa in 1999, a new ICA Commission on Mountain Cartography was established in order to meet the new demands in this domain. The Commission defined the following terms of reference that have been accepted by the ICA General Assembly: ! Definition of the scope of subjects of high mountain cartography ! Promotion of mountain cartography ! Collection of bibliographic references ! Status of national mountain cartography activities (federal agencies, private companies, etc.) ! Promotion of joint research projects with other organisations and ICA commissions The commission has organised three very successful workshop s so far, which showed the broadness of the thematic spectrum of mountain cartography. The papers have been published for the Silvretta 98 workshop by Kriz (1998), for the Rudolfsh ̧tte 2000 workshop by Buchroithner (2001) and for the Mt Hood 2002 workshop on the web-site [wwwICAHood, 2002]. More information about the commission and its activities can be found on the official web-site http://www.karto.ethz.ch/ica-cmc/ 3. MODELLING AND VISUALISATION DEMANDS FOR CARTOGRAPHIC, MOUNTAIN-RELATED APPLICATIONS The following, incomplete list after [wwwCIPRA] gives an im pression of the thematic variety which are related to mountain environments: § Agenda 21 § Alpine cities § Alpine convention § Bio-diversity § Change of cultural landscape § Energy § Fauna § Flora § Health § Hydrology § Land use planning § Landscape § Migration § Mountain agriculture § Mountain forest § Natural Hazards § Nature protection § NGO involvement § Protection of species § Regional development § Ski resorts § Societal and Cultural cohesion § Soil protection § Sustainable development § Figure 1. Map extract of Mt. Bietschhorn area in Switzerland. Classical topograp hic map 1:25í000 (left) and vector data set 1:25'000 (situation) and 1:200'000 (land use) provided by the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (right). The hardly accessible areas such as cliffs and scree contai n significantly less information in the vector data set. © Swisstopo, Wabern, Switzerland Other representations: ! Map-related representations (in German: ëëKartenverwan dte Darstellungeníí): Besides the classic orthogonally projected maps, perspective views, which allow a more natural view, are used in mountain cartography. This leads to a large variety of different types of map-related representations, such as panoramas and block diagrams. ! GIS maps (ëësynthesis mapsíí). More recent, but less spect acular applications are printe d mountain maps, which are based on data resources from GIS and other databases. Ho wever, there is still consider able lack of homogenised vector base data, not only in less developed areas but even in the Alps (Fig. 1). ! Enhanced image maps: Orthophoto and satellite images data can be integrated as ëëbase mapíí similar to digital topographic maps. ! Animations: Animated scenes in 2D mode can easily be created using temporal scientific data covering mountainous areas in combination with topographic data or image data. ! Perspective views and 3D mountain maps. DEMs enable the presentation of landscape sections as digital perspective views with the help of specialised modelling and rendering software (H‰berling, 1999; Petrovic, 2001). ! Other 3D representations: Recently, new approaches using real 3D techniques have been applied in different scientific, non-commercial mountain-related projects, such as display techniques like holography or anaglyph stereoscopic images (Schenkel, 2000). ! Personalised mountain maps: In the future, a broad variet y of mountain maps will be accessible by the user by means of new media technology. The user will choose th e preferred data layers and will add own topographic or textual layers. 3.2 Thematic mountain cartography Today, applications of mountain cartography are not only re stricted to large mountainou s areas like the Alps but one deals also with phenomena related to smaller areas, such as volcanic islands or coastal areas. Within this discipline, numerous thematic topics can be listed. The following ñ incomplete ñ list gives an impression of the large extent of cartographic, mountain-related applications: Topics Phenomena (structures, processes) Topographic relief representations Heights: Represented by contour lines, spot heights, networks, hill-shading, (cliff representation) Extent and surface Geology, geomorphology, glaciology, permafrost, hydrology, climate Dynamic processes Glacier development, avalan ches, ìmurgangî, landscape change, vegetation development, weather Anthropogenic influences Settlement , economic structures, (mountain ag riculture, tourism), leisure use (activities, infrastructure), traffi c, environmental immissions (harmful substances, noise), culture (languages, customs) A selected set of examples covering a variety of thema tic applications in mountain cartography using different technologies and media will be shown in chapter 5. 4. A TOOLBOX FOR PROCESSING CARTOGRAPHIC MOUNTAIN DATA This chapter deals with the proposal for an interactive toolbox able to carry out a broad range of cartographic functions. The focus is laid on interactive mountain maps. Such an overall system does not yet exist but single components have already been developed. Some of them will be presented in chapter 5. The first step in the establishment of the toolbox will be the development of a digital multipurpose data model for topographic and thematic applications, based on a new ìmountain cartography ontologyî. Within this ontology, basic definition of objects and their relation and interaction must be developed. Preliminarily and technically spoken, the implemented model might for instance be based on a modified TIN model, added by topological object-oriented components. and applied methods. Figures 2 and 3 show on e possibility of such a topological model: An object- enriched TIN-structure, i. e. TIN meshes are attributed due to the thematic content of the overlyin g objects. If the objects are more detailed than the original TIN meshes, the structure is refined. This model is mainly suited for area objects. Such a description is primarily used for system internal pu rposes, i. e. to support the development of the tools and to ensure the compatibility (input/output) with existing data sources. Figure 2. Object-oriented data m odel (left), object-enriched TIN-mode l (right). After Terribilini (2001). Figure 3. Symbolised (abstracted) visualisation of mountainous area in Southern Switzerland without (top) and with (bottom) level-of-detail techniques: Degree of details is higher in foreground than in background. The rendering is based on the object-enriched TIN-models shown in Fig. 2. After Terribilini (2001). DE M and area data © Swisstopo, Wabern, Switzerland The second step would be the development of a toolbox for cartographic mountain visualisation in 2D and 3D, based on the mountain cartography ontology. The in tention is not to propose a monolithic, closed prog ram solution, but open, modular and distributed software components which can be accessed on the Internet and can be combined upon userís needs. Data structuring, administration and storage should take pl ace on standard databases with added GIS functionality. It is not planned to ìre-developî a sophisti cated Geographic Information System, but rather to build on existing (open-source) modules and to concentrate on the mountain-specific needs and aspects. The following functions should be included (the word in brackets indicate the type of activity): ! Data import and export modules compatible with national and international geo-data standards: ! Interface to existing geo-data standards, allowing the conve rsion into the multipurpose data format as well as the enrichment with additional attribu tive information, e.g. relations be tween objects, etc. (input module) ! Base maps: resolution, format, GIS compatibility (mapping) ! Combination with thematic data (overlay) ! Reference systems (transformation) ! Visualisation methods (display) ! Modelling and visualisation of mountai n-specific features, representation in 2D (paper, screen) and 3D mode ! Land cover, hydrography (mapping) ! Cliffs, scree and barren land, analyti cal shading (cartographic visualisation) ! Thematic (abstract) information, based on thematic survey (mapping) ! Symbolised (abstract) vs. photo-realistic visualisation (Fig. 4) (display) ! Automated derivation of ìclassicî topographic paper maps from above data. (display) ! Definition and implementation of functionality of a possible 3-dimensional topographic map, allowing the combination with thematic and interactive analys is of thematic map layers (combined activity) ! Guidelines for map visualisation and use for the mobile user: Portability on portable, palmtop, and augmented reality displays (Fig. 5). (display) Figure 4. Visualisation of Mt. Schneeberg near Vienna, Austria: Photorealistic visualisation using orthophoto draped over landscape (top). Symbolised visualisation of land cover and touristic infrastructure (centre). Overlay with slope and aspect information (b ottom). Source: Karel Kriz, University of Vienna