Abstract
“Presenting data without error rate is misleading”. This is a quote from the O.J. Simpson defense team regarding the presentation of DNA evidence without valid error rate statistics. Taken more generally, this practice is a prevalent shortcoming in the scientific and information visualization communities where data are visualized without any indication of their associated uncertainties. While it is widely acknowledged that incorporating auxiliary information about data, i.e. data quality or uncertainty, is important, the relative amount of work in this area is small. On the other hand, developments by the geographic, cartographic, and GIS communities in this regard is much more concerted. Some of the early efforts were spearheaded by the participating members of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) initiatives (Beard et al. 1991; Goodchild et al. 1994), where different methods of displaying and animating data with uncertainty were proposed. An excellent summary of this body of work can be found in (MacEachren et al. 2005). Combining these works with those from the information and scientific visualization communities, a typology for uncertainty visualization was presented which tries to map data, uncertainty, and tasks with the appropriate visual presentation (Thomson et al. 2005). Specifically, the typology for uncertainty visualization would give the user some guidance about the visual representations for the different types of uncertainty.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Basser PJ, Pajevic S (2003) Dealing with uncertainty in diffusion tensor MR data. Israel Journal of Chemistry 43:129–144
Beard MK, Buttenfield BP, Clapham SB (1991) NCGIA research initiative 7: Visualization of spatial data quality (Technical Paper 91-26). National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, Santa Barbara, CA
Bertin J (1983) Semiology of graphics. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison
Bostrom A, Anselin L (2005) Visualizing seismic risk and uncertainty. In: Proceedings of the MAEViz Meeting. St. Louis
Cedilnik A, Rheingans P (2000) Procedural annotation of uncertain information. In: Proceedings of Visualization’ 00, pp 77–84
Chatfield C (1983) Statistics for technology, a course in applied statistics, third edition. Chapman and Hall, Boca Raton
Cliburn DC, Feddema JJ, Miller JR, Slocum TA (2002) Design and evaluation of a decision support system in a water balance application. Computers & Graphics 26:931–949
Djurcilov S, Pang A (2000) Visualizing sparse gridded datasets. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 20:52–57
society.pdf.
Fisher P (1994) On animation and sound for the visualization of uncertain spatial information. In: Hearnshaw HM, Unwin DJ (eds), Visualization in geographical information systems. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 181–185
Goodchild M, Buttenfield B, Wood J (1994) Introduction to visualizing data validity. In: Hearnshaw HM, Unwin DJ (eds), Visualization in geographical information systems. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 141–149
Griethe H, Schumann H (2005) Visualizing uncertainty for improved decision making. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Business Informatics Research
Grigoryan G, Rheingans P (2004) Point-based probabilistic surfaces to show surface uncertainty. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 10:564–573
Hashash YMA, Yao JI-C, Wotring DC (2003) Glyph and hyperstreamline representation of stress and strain tensors and material constitutive response. International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods. Geomechanics 27:603–626
Hibbard W, Santek D (1990) The VIS-5D system for easy interactive visualization. In: Proceedings of Visualization’ 90, pp 28–35
Jachens RC, Wentworth CM, Gautier DL, Pack S (2001) 3D geologic maps and visualization: A new approach to the geology of the Santa Clara (Silicon) Valley, California (Technical Report Open-File Report 01-223). USGS
Jeremié B, Sett K, Kavvas ML (2005 (In Review)) Probabilistic elasto-plasticity: Formulation of evolution of probability density function. ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Johnson CR, Sanderson AR (2003) A next step: Visualizing errors and uncertainty. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 23:6–10
Kao D, Dungan J, Pang A (2001) Visualizing 2D probability distributions from EOS satellite image-derived data sets: A case study. In: Proceedings of Visualization’ 01, pp 457–460
Kao D, Kramer M, Luo A, Dungan J, Pang A (2005) Visualizing distributions from multi-return LIDAR data to understand forest structure. The Cartographic Journal 42:1–14
Kim K, Wittenbrink C, Pang A (2001) Extended specifications and test data sets for data level comparisons of direct volume-rendering algorithms. Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 7:299–317
Klir G, Wierman M (1999) Uncertainty-based information: Elements of generalized information theory, 2nd edn Physica-Verlag, Heidelberg
Kloeden PE, Platen E (1995) Numerical solution of stochastic differential equations. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg
Lee CH, Varshney A (2002) Representing thermal vibrations and uncertainty in molecular surfaces. In: Proceedings of the SPIE Visual Data Exploration and Analysis’ 02, pp 80–90
Lermusiaux PFJ (1999) Data assimilation via error subspace statistical estimation, part II: Middle Atlantic Bight shelfbreak front simulations and ESSE validation. Monthly Weather Review 127:1408–1432
Lorensen WE, Cline HE (1987) Marching cubes: A high resolution 3D surface construction algorithm. Computer Graphics 21:163–169
Luo A, Kao D, Pang A (2003) Visualizing spatial distribution data sets. In: Proceedings of VisSym’03, pp 29–38
Ma K-L, Stompel A, Bielak J, Ghattas O, Kim EJ (2003) Visualizing large-scale earthquake simulations. In: Proceedings of Supercomputing
MacEachren AM, Howard D, Von Wyss M, Askov D, Taormino T (1993) Visualizing the health of Chesapeake Bay: An uncertain endeavor. In: Proceedings of GIS/LIS’ 93 Proc. v. 1. Minneapolis, MN, pp 449–458
MacEachren AM, Robinson A, Hopper S, Gardner S, Murray R, Gahegan M, Hetzler E (2005) Visualizing geospatial information uncertainty: What we know and what we need to know. Cartography and Geographic Information Science 32:139–160
Miller DR, Morrice JG (1996) Assessing uncertainty in catchment boundary delimitation. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International conference on GIS and Environmental Modelling
Monmonier M (1996) How to Lie with Maps, 2nd edn. University of Chicago Press
Pang A (2001) Visualizing uncertainty in geo-spatial data, prepared for the national academies committee of the computer science and telecommunications board. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on the Intersections between Geospatial Information and Information Technology
Pearl J (1996) Decision making under uncertainty. ACM Computing Surveys: ACM 50th Anniversary Symposium 28:89–92
Peters E, Dieckmann N, Dixon A, Hibbard JH, Mertz CK (2007) Less is more in presenting quality information to consumers. Medical Care Research & Review 64(2):169–90
Slovic P, Finucane ML, Peters E, MacGregor DG (2002) The affect heuristic. In: Gilovich T, Griffin D, Kahneman D (eds), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 397–420
Slovic P, Monahan J, MacGregor DG (2000) Violence risk assessment and risk communication: The effects of using actual cases, providing instruction, and employing probability versus frequency formats. Journal of Law and Human Behavior 24:271–296
Strothotte T, Puhle M, Masuch M, Freudenberg B, Kreiker S, Ludowici B (1999) Visualizing uncertainty in virtual reconstructions. In: Proceedings of the EVA Europe’ 99: Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts. Florence, Italy, pp 16–18
Thomson J, Hetzler B, MacEachren A, Gahegan MN, Pavel M (2005) Typology for visualizing uncertainty. In: Visualization and data analysis volume 5669, pp 146–157
Tufte ER (1983) The visual display of quantitative information. Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT
Tversky B (2000) Levels and structures of cognitive mapping. In: Kitchin R, Freundshuh SM (eds), Cognitive mapping: Past, present and future. Routledge, New York, pp 24–43
Van Gelder A, Wilhelms J (1994) Topological considerations in isosurface generation. ACM Transactions on Graphics 13:337–375
Ware C (2004) Information visualization: Perception for design. Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies, 2nd edn. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco
Wittenbrink CM, Pang AT, Lodha SK (1996) Glyphs for visualizing uncertainty in vector fields. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 2:266–279
Zuk T, Carpendale S (2006) Theoretical analysis of uncertainty visualizations. In: Erbacher RF, Roberts JC, Grohn MT, Borner K (eds), Visualization and data analysis, Proceedings of SPIE-IS&T Electronic Imaging, SPIE 6060
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pang, A. (2008). Visualizing Uncertainty in Natural Hazards. In: Bostrom, A., French, S., Gottlieb, S. (eds) Risk Assessment, Modeling and Decision Support. Risk, Governance and Society, vol 14. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71158-2_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71158-2_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-71157-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-71158-2
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)