Designing a Semi-automatic Map Construction Process for the Effective Visualisation of Business Geodata

This paper proposes a map construction process for the semi-automatic construction of thematic maps from business information data. Addressing a non-specialist user audience, the map construction process will allow a correct, at the same time effective cartographic visualisation for further (geo)visual analysis. Utilising the frequently disregarded geospatial component of existing business mass data, quality map representations facilitate the visual exploration, detection, and analysis of relevant spatial data distributions and structures hitherto unseen in the data. Presently, neither operational procedures nor appropriate software systems, such as BIS, DDS or GIS, are available in the industry for an effective map representation of the geocoded data. To put economic and business experts into a position to make full use of the geo coordinates present in the data, an easy-to-handle map construction process is required to exploit the full semantic and spatial potential of business data. Exemplified for an area diagram map, the map construction process discussed here provides the relevant tools and methods for the targeted audience.