The effects of landmarks in VGI-based maps on navigation performance (DFG Priority Programme, SPP 1894)

As part of the DFG priority programme „Volunteered Geographic Information: Interpretation, Visualisation and Social Computing“ (SPP 1894), the Cartography department of the Ruhr University Bochum has been conducting research on the cognitive influences of landmark representations in maps in cooperation with the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin since 2017. In the first phase of the project, the focus was on the influence of landmark representations in maps on position and route memory.

The cultural landscape development of Polish and German Industrial centres (DPWS Project)

The DPWS project conducted by the Cartography research team of the Institute of Geography at the Ruhr University Bochum and the Department of Cartography and Geomatics at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan investigated the transformation of industrial centres such as the Ruhr region or the Upper Silesian Industrial Area (Poland) since industrialisation in the 19th century. Characteristic for this development are, above all, massive urbanisation processes that took place within a few decades.

Spatial Distortions in Cognitive Maps ‐ A Chance and Challenge to Enrich the Principles of Map Design (DFG project)

The aim of this project was to identify and optimise the design of specific map features in order to reduce the perception‐based distortion errors people learn from cartographic maps and store in their cognitive maps. Involving both the Geography and Psychology Department of the Ruhr‐University Bochum (RUB), the project intended to exploit the findings on the structures of spatial memory in order to optimise the principles of map design.

Lenticular generation of thematic cartographic multi-image models (DFG project)

3D technique allows the integration of additional thematic information into a base map, for example by placing „levitating“ diagrams (see right figure) above the map base without covering up important map elements such as labels or relief information and preventing the perception of crucial labels and relief information. Empirical tests were conducted in order to investigate which cartographic presentation methods (choropleth, isoline, diagram maps) can lead to a more effective map use and how cartographic design elements (colours, minimum dimensions, signature design, font, etc.) must be adapted to the respective lenticular effects.