Exploring geographical data with spatio-visual data mining

Abstract

Efficiently exploring a large spatial dataset with the aim of forming a hypothesis is one of the main challenges for information science. This study presents a method for exploring spatial data with a combination of spatial and visual data mining. Spatial relationships are modeled during a data pre-processing step, consisting of the density analysis and vertical view approach, after which an exploration with visual data mining follows. The method has been tried on emergency response data about fire and rescue incidents in Helsinki. © 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.