A framework for constructing open data map visualizations

Abstract

Open Government Data has been made available by public institutions in Brazil and the world, and can add value to various sectors of society. Open data is also linked to smart cities, and hence important in this context, as it is the first step towards public transparency. Despite the wide range of Open Government Data, interpreting such data sets is a non-trivial task, due to the massive amount of raw data. This stimulates the search for techniques and methodologies that allow the interpretation of implicit information and deduction of new knowledge. One of the approaches used for these tasks involves the use of data visualizations. In addition to data visualizations classically used in descriptive statistics for data analysis, such as line or bar charts, many web sites have been used map visualization techniques. This type of visualization is important, since visualization of georeferenced data combined with other types of information can aid its interpretation. However, for data visualization construction on maps, it is necessary that the objects to be visualized are georeferenced. There are standards for turning such data available, however they are diverse, which may make it difficult for a single tool to display views from different sources. This work aims to present a framework that defines data standards for constructing data visualizations on maps of various types. Based on this framework, a tool was implemented to facilitate the creation of different map views, both by developers of open data portals and by users who analyze such data.