Visualisation techniques for collaborative GIS browsers

Abstract

Visual information overload is a serious problem for users of geographic information systems (GIS), or other applications with complex displays, where the requirements of access to both local detail and wider context conflict. This problem is compounded for users of real-time groupware applications by the need to maintain awareness information about other users and their actions. In this paper, we describe our use of fisheye views to assist with visual information overload management in GroupARC, a lightweight real-time groupware application for browsing and annotating GIS data.