Visualising spatial uncertainty in point observations

[mjwestgate]

Biodiversity observations in databases such as the Atlas of Living Australia are often recorded at an intentionally low level of spatial precision. This process - known as 'obfuscation' - helps hide populations of species that are at risk of extinction, or of being targeted by the illegal pet trade.

When these points are displayed on a map, however, there is no indication of which points are precise to ~10m, and which have been generalised to a precision of ~10km. Instead, default mapping approaches give the false impression that all points are equally precise, which leads to problems in the use and interpretation of that data. There are several possible solutions to this problem:

• Only displaying points when the zoom level is more coarse than their level of precision
• Only showing summarised data, such as hex maps
• Changing point properties (colour, size, opacity) depending on their level of precision
• Some combination of the above

What is unclear is whether any of these solutions can both display information as precisely as possible, and not be visually jarring or over-complex on the screen. Put differently: solutions that are simple lose information, solutions that are complex aren't pretty.

We propose working collaboratively to test different visualisations to see whether a generalisable solution to this problem can be found.

[deanmarchiori]

Hi! Thanks for the topic suggestion.

To help us prepare for the hackathon event it would be great to prepare a quick 30-60 sec overview of the topic to introduce it to the group on the day and seek interested collaborators. You can use the below prompts to help with this:

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