Integrated quality of models and quality of maps

Abstract

Conceptual modeling traditionally focuses on a high level of abstraction. Even if geographical aspects such as location is included in several enterprise modeling frameworks [26], it is not common to have geographical aspects included in conceptual models. Cartography is the science of visualizing geographical information in maps. Traditionally the field has not included conceptual relationships and the primary focus is on a fairly low abstraction level. Both cartography and conceptual modeling have developed guidelines for obtaining high quality visualizations. SEQUAL is a quality framework developed for understanding quality in conceptual models and modeling languages. In cartography such counterparts are not common to find. An attempt to adapt SEQUAL in the context of cartographic maps has been performed, named MAPQUAL. The paper presents MAPQUAL. Differences between quality of maps and quality of conceptual models are highlighted, pointing to guidelines for combined representations which are the current focus of our work. An example of such combined use is presented indicating the usefulness of a combined framework. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.