18th International Conference on Location Based Services (LBS 2023) – A Report

The LBS conference series started in 2002 in Vienna, Austria, initiated by Prof. Georg Gartner from TU Wien. Since 2015, it has become the annual conference of the ICA Commission on Location Based Services. In the past years, the LBS conferences travelled around the world – with venues in Hong Kong, Salzburg, Nottingham, Shanghai, Vienna, Augsburg, Zurich, Glasgow, and Munich.

In 2023, the LBS conference was hosted by Ghent University, Belgium, on November 20-22, 2023. Around 90 participants from all over the world gathered in the historical city center of Ghent. The conference was opened by the Conference Chairs Prof. Haosheng Huang and Prof. Nico Van de Weghe.

Opening session of the 18th International Conference on Location Based Services – LBS 2023 held in Ghent, Belgium

The conference featured five keynotes by Prof. Krzysztof Janowicz from University of Vienna, Bart Rosseau from Digitaal Vlaanderen, Prof. Wim Hardyns from Ghent University (UGent), Prof. Sofie Van Hoecke from UGent-imec, and Prof. Sidharta Gautama from UGent.

A total of 50 oral presentations have been given in 10 single-stream sessions over the two and half days. Another 4 showcases were presented all the conference. These oral presentations, showcases and posters provide a general picture of recent research activities related to the domain of LBS. Such activities emerged in the last years, especially concerning issues of GeoAI, outdoor/indoor positioning, smart environment, spatial modeling, personalization, context-awarenesss, cartographic communication, novel user interfaces, crowdsourcing, social media, big data analysis, usability and privacy.

Oral sessions of LBS 2023

Opening session of the 18th International Conference on Location Based Services – LBS 2023 held in Ghent, Belgium

Showcases at LBS 2023

The conference also featured a “Best paper session” on the 3rd conference day.

The best full paper award at LBS2023 went to Eva Nuhn, Kai Hamburger and Sabine Timpf from University of Augsburg, Germany for their full paper on “Mapping olfactory cues for wayfinding – A theoretical approach and an empirical study”.
The winner of the best short paper award at LBS2023 is “Towards Personalized Pedestrian Route Recommendation Based on Implicit Visual Preference”, authored by Lin Che, Martin Raubal and Peter Kiefer from ETH Zurich.

With the co-sponsoring of ESRI BeLux and ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, we were also happy to offer Travel Grants to support 7 young researchers to participate in the conference.

A selection of peer-reviewed full papers will be published in the Journal of Location Based Services. Accepted work in progress submissions are included in the conference online proceeding.

Besides the technical and scientific program, the conference provided several social networking opportunities, including an ice-breaker reception on the first day and a conference dinner in a traditional restaurant with famous Ghent cuisine on the 2nd day.

More details and photos regarding LBS 2023 can be found at lbs2023.lbsconference.org.

Tag: Belgium, conference report

Obituary: Igor Drecki – A passionate Cartographer

It is with heavy hearts and profound sadness that we remember our friend and colleague Igor Drecki who, with his wife Iwona, met an untimely end in a car accident on July 26.

Igor was the official New Zealand representative at the general assemblies of the ICA since 1999. He was organizer of numerous ICA events in New Zealand, including the ICA Commission on Visualisation and Virtual Environments Meeting “Geovisualisation on the Web” (Taupo 2001), ICA Internet Cartography Seminar (Auckland 2005), ICA Internet Cartography Workshop (Auckland 2006), and ICA Regional Symposia on Cartography for Australasia and Oceania (Auckland 2010, 2012, 2014 and Wellington, 2016). He was also co-organizer of the 8th ICA Mountain Cartography Workshop (Taurewa 2012). In addition to being an ex-officio member of the ICA Executive Committee (since 2007), he was probably best known to many within and outside the ICA as editor of the ICA News, the official newsletter of the ICA. For his many notable contributions to the ICA, he received the Diploma for Outstanding Services to the ICA in 2017.

In 2017, Igor received the ICA Diploma for Outstanding Services from then-president Menno-Jan Kraak.

His passion for cartography started with his master studies in geography and cartography at the University of Warsaw, and it continued after he settled with his wife Iwona in New Zealand while pursuing a master’s of science degree at the University of Auckland on “Visualization of Uncertainty in Spatial Data”. His research and work experience included professional positions in academia, industry, public administration and most recently libraries and learning services. He was the responsible curator of cartographic and geographic resources of the University of Auckland Library, then latterly curator, Cartographic and Geospatial Collections at the Alexander Turnbull Library, housed within the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington.

Igor was instrumental in the success of the New Zealand Cartographic Society (NZCS). He was a member since 1989 and a life member since 2011; president from 2013 to 2018; NZCS’s (as national member) liaison to the International Cartographic Association (ICA); and director of the biennial New Zealand national cartographic conference, GeoCart, since 2001.

Igor Drecki at GeoCart 2022

Despite his impressive professional record and accomplishments, Igor was “authentic”. He had strong opinions and was ready to stand up for them; he was passionate about cartography and maps; and was a staunch advocate for cartography. But more than this, he was a person who could relate to others. He was interested to learn, discuss, exchange as well as interrelate, give, serve, help, and contribute. This was certainly true for his colleagues and his family, but also for those of us who considered Igor a friend. He was a noble man at heart.

We will miss you, Igor.

Aileen Buckley, Anthony Moore, Dusan Petrovic, Georg Gartner

Category: Commission News, General News

Tag: New Zealand, New Zealand Cartographic Society, Obituary

Invitation to the 18th International Conference on Location Based Services (LBS 2023)

The ICA Commission on Location Based Services and Ghent University are pleased to invite you to the 18th International Conference on Location Based Services (LBS 2023), which will take place in Ghent, Belgium on 20-22 November 2023.

Built on the success of previous conferences in this series, LBS 2023 aims to offer a common ground to colleagues from various disciplines and practice where they can meet, interact and exchange knowledge, experience, plans and ideas on how LBS can and could be improved and on how it will influence both science and society.

Call for Papers

The Call for Papers is currently open. We call for full papers, work in progress, and showcases. High-quality full paper submissions are intended to be published in the Journal of Location Based Services. Accepted work-in-progress submissions will be published in the online proceedings of the conference (with a DOI).

We are also pleased to announce two awards at LBS 2023: one Best paper award, and one work in progress award. Meanwhile, travel grants will be available for young researchers whose submissions are accepted. More details will follow.

Important Dates

Full paper submission: 15 June 2023
Work in progress submission: 15 July 2023
Notification of full paper acceptance: 1 August 2023
Showcase submission: 10 September 2023
Notification of work in progress acceptance: 16 September 2023
Early registration ends, author registration deadline: 30 September 2023
Conference: 20-24 November 2023

Topics

We invite contributions in the following areas (but not limited to):

Geospatial Artificial intelligence (GeoAI) and LBS

Geography/GIScience-guided AI
Explainable GeoAI
GeoAI-enabled LBS

Context modelling and context-awareness

Smart environments and ambient spatial intelligence
Indoor spatial data modelling and mapping
Place modelling and understanding
Context modelling, personalisation, and context-aware adaptation

Mobile user interface and interaction

Visualisation techniques for LBS
Mobile human-computer interaction
Augmented reality and mixed reality

User studies and evaluation

Evaluation methodologies for LBS
User experiences of LBS
Mobile spatial cognition

Acquisition, management, and analytics of Location big data

Crowdsourcing and internet of things
Spatial data science and big data analytics
Computational mobility and activity analytics
Descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics

Ubiquitous Positioning

Outdoor and indoor positioning
Multi-sensor system and sensor fusion

Social and behavioural implications of LBS

Location privacy
Legal, ethical, and business aspects of LBS
Biases in location data analytics and GeoAI

Innovative LBS and applications

Intelligent navigation systems
Smart cities and sustainable mobility
Autonomous and connected vehicles
Public health
Location based social networks and games
Digital humanities

More information regarding LBS 2023 can be found at lbsconference.org.

Category: Commission News, Location Based Services

Tag: Belgium, cfp

ICC 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa – submissions deadline extended to 9 and 16 January respectively

Smart Cartography for Sustainable Development
31st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023),
13-18 August 2023,
Cape Town, South Africa

Call for abstracts and papers

The International Cartographic Association (ICA) invites you to share your research, practice and experiences in cartography and GIScience at the 31st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023), to be held from 13 to 18 August 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa. Submissions of abstracts (1-2 pages) and full papers (8 pages) in English are accepted, following the respective ICA templates.

Abstracts and full papers will be peer reviewed by a minimum of two experts in the field against the following criteria: scientific originality, potential interest to the community, proper documentation of prior work, clarity of presentation, technical correctness and correct use of language. Authors of accepted abstracts and papers will be invited to present their work in English at the ICC 2023, either as oral presentation or as poster. The presenting author must register for the conference. Accompanying persons, who are registered for the conference, will receive one complementary entry to one technical session of their choice, such as to support a speaker when delivering their presentation. Submit your abstract or paper at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icc2023.

Important dates

9 January 2023 – Extended submission of full papers closes
16 January 2023 – Extended submission of abstracts closes
February 2023 – Conference registration opens
28 February 2023 – Notification of acceptance
8 May 2023 – Submission of revised abstracts and papers
15 May 2023 – Early Bird registration closes
15 May 2023 – Registration deadline for presenters of abstracts, papers and posters

Conference publications

ICC 2023 publications follow the ICA publication regulations. Accepted abstracts and papers that have been revised to address reviewer comments will be published in one of the ICA publications: Abstracts of the ICA, Proceedings of the ICA, Advances of the ICA or International Journal of Cartography. Authors of accepted abstracts have the option to expand their abstract into a full paper of 8 pages for publication in the Proceedings of the ICA. If they opt not to do this, their abstract will be published in the Abstracts of the ICA.

Full papers are accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the ICA or in the Advances of the ICA. Selected papers accepted for the Advances will be invited to submit their papers to the International Journal of Cartography, for inclusion in a special issue.

On submission, authors will be able to indicate whether they would like their abstracts and papers to be considered for a special issue in one of the ICA’s three affiliated journals – Cartographica, Cartography and Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) and The Cartographic Journal. Following the submission of revisions, editors of the affiliated journals will invite authors of selected abstracts and papers with the potential to be developed into a full journal paper to submit a substantially revised and/or expanded paper to a special issue in their journal, to be published in 2024.

Conference theme and topics

The conference theme is Smart Cartography for Sustainable Development. Conference topics are related to ICA Commissions and other topics of interest to the ICA community:

Art and cartography
Atlases
Augmented, virtual and mixed reality in cartography
Beyond SDIs towards the future geospatial ecosystem
Cartographic heritage into the digital
Cartography and children
Cartography and GIScience for climate change
Cartography in early warning and crisis management
Cognitive issues in geographic information visualization
Crowdsourcing in cartography and GIScience
Earth Observation and cartography
Education and training
Ethical issues in cartography and GIScience
Generalisation and multiple representation
Geospatial analysis and modelling
Geospatial data, analysis and mapping for SDGs
Geospatial data, analysis and mapping for service delivery
Geospatial data hubs for SDGs
Geospatial semantics
History of cartography
Informal settlement mapping
Location-based services
Map design
Mapping Africa for Africa
Map production and geoinformation management
Map projections
Maps and graphics for blind and partially sighted people
Maps and the internet
Maps for sport and leisure activities, such as trekking cycling and orienteering
Marine cartography
Military cartography
Mountain cartography
Open data for cartography and GIScience
Open science in cartography and GIScience
Open source geospatial technologies
Participatory mapping
Planetary cartography
SDI and standards
Sensor-driven mapping
Theoretical cartography
Standardization in cartography
Topographic mapping
Toponymy
Ubiquitous mapping
UN GGIM IGIF implementations
User experience
Visual analytics

Looking forward to seeing you all in Cape Town next year!

Regards,
Serena Coetzee
Head of the scientific programme at ICC2023

Category: General News

Tag: cfp, ICC2023, South Africa

Programme published for “The Surveying Turn in Cartography”

From Monday 24 October till Wednesday 26 October 2022 the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin will jointly host the 9th International Symposium on the History of Cartography. The venue will be the recently renovated old main building of the Staatsbibliothek in the heart of Berlin on the boulevard Unter den Linden (subway stop) within sight of the iconic Brandenburg Gate. To explore the city and its cartographic heritage, tours of the Staatsbibliothek and the Humboldt-forum’s map collections, as well as a guided walking tour of the city are planned.

Programme

The full programme has been published and can be accessed here.

It promises to be an exciting event at a wonderful venue! Registration (55 euro) is still possible through the website: https://history.icaci.org/berlin-2022/

We hope to see many of you there!

Soetkin Vervust
Secretary ICA Commission on the History of Cartography

Category: Commission News, History of Cartography

Tag: Germany

Invitation to the Barbara Petchenik Competition 2023

Dear friends and colleagues,

It’s a great pleasure and honor to announce the Official Call for the Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition 2023.

This year there are no significant changes for the participants in the competition. The theme will be again: A map of my future world (as selected by our colleagues from 17 countries).

All documents related to the organization of the next competition can be found here:

General rules for the Barbara Petchenik Competition 2023
Rules for the national coordinators
Rules for teachers and parents
Parent permission form: the permission form that should be signed by parents or legal representatives
Author data form: an optional data form to be annexed to the drawings selected for the international competition

As became usual in the last years, national coordinators will be invited to participate in an e-mail-based voting process to select the winner works in June 2023. By this reason it is very important to send names and e-mails of national coordinators by e-mail for the Chair and Vice-Chair of ICA Commission on Cartography and Children, otherwise we cannot ensure our direct contact for the invitation.

For more detailed information about the competition, please visit the Petchenik section on the ICA website, the website of the Commission on Cartography and Children or their Facebook page.

Best regards

Carla Cristina R. G. de SENA
Chair, ICA Commission on Cartography and Children

Jose Jesus REYES NUNEZ
Vice-Chair, ICA Commission on Cartography and Children

Category: Cartography and Children, Commission News

Tag: Barbara Petchenik Competition

News of the ICA Commission on Cartography for Early Warning and Crisis Management

In the 8th International Conference on Cartography and GIS, June 20-25th June 2022, in Nessebar, Bulgaria, commission members of the ICA Commission on Cartography for Early Warning and Crisis Management participated in four activities.

In the first keynote of the conference, Prof. Milan Konecny replaced president Timothy Trainor by his keynote speech titled: The United Nations Challenges for SDGs and Sendai Framework: The Role of Cartographers, where U.N. efforts, including Sendai Framework and GGIM and DBAR activities have been strongly highlighted (June 21).

Seminar on Disaster Risk Reduction – Solutions and Innovations organized in cooperation with ICA Commission on Cartgraphy in Early Warning and Crisis Management and Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic was based on physical and video presentations (June 21). The seminar began with a keynote by commission vice-chai Milan Konecny (with co-authors Temenoujka Bandrova (Bulgaria), Petr Kubíček, Zdeněk Stachoň, Radim Štampach (Czech Republic). Jie Shen (China), Irina Rotanova (Russian Federation), Jan Brodský and Pavel Špulák (both Czech Republic), titled: Strategies of Disaster Risk Reduction on the Background of U.N. GGIM and Digital Belt And Road Efforts. Keynote was followed by other papers: Krzysztof Pokonieczny (Poland): Methodology of Developing The Dynamic Maps of Passability, Milaim Sylka (Kosovo (video presentation), Pavel Špulák, Bohuslav Ježek and Zdeněk Červenka (Czech Republic): GIS, Big Data and Mapping in Disaster Management Charts and Maps for Statistical Yearbooks of Fire and Rescue Service of the Czech Republic, Ekaterina Podolskaia, Anastasia Nekrasova, Tatiana Prokhorova, Aleksey Trubenkov and Olga Selyutskaya (Russian Federation): Web-Gis Projects at the Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences (video presentation).

Topics of the seminar were:

DRR U.N. Sendai Agenda: Challenges for Cartography and Geoinformatics
Cartographic Support for Emergency Evacuation
Virtual Reality and Disaster Preparedness
VGI Possibilities in DRR
Threats Caused by Agricultural Operations

Around 20-25 people particiated in the meeting of the Commission On Cartography on Early Warning and Crisis Management on June 22. They were explained the areas that the commission deals with, especially with regard to the initiatives of the Sendai Framework, but with an emphasis on the scientific and applied development of cartography. The meeting was also attended by ICA vice-president Prof. T. Bandrova, ISDE president Dr. A. Annoni, chairmen of other ICA commissions associate professors O. Čerba, or Jesus Reyes, ESRI representative Dr. N. Land and many others. The discussion results in a recommendation to create a publication on the role of cartography in DRR supplemented by representative outputs promoting cartography itself, unifying terminology or analyzing the potential of cartography in solving a selected disaster.

Category: Cartography in Early Warning and Crisis Management, Commission News

Tag: Bulgaria

News of the ICA Commission on Cartography for Early Warning and Crisis Management

The ICA Commission Cartography for Early Warning and Crises Management (CEW&CM) has successfully held a pre-conference workshop and two sessions at the ICC 2021 in Florence.

The workshop aimed at combining and addressing as comprehensively as possible the current Big Data issue, cloud computing, and latest trends and technologies in cartographic visualization in the field of early warning, crisis management and Disaster Risk Reduction.

The growth of Internet-based services and cloud services is leading and has led to a comprehensive view on data characterized by the terms Volume, Variety, Velocity and Veracity. The emergence of very large, unstructured, dynamic, time-varying data sets including associated measures of quality (so-called Big Data) offers considerable challenges for cartography which – if processed and visualized
correctly and appropriately for the target audience – can provide significant new insights for information, situation analysis, decision making and alternative actions. Experts from different, interdisciplinary directions discussed different concerns from the above mentioned topics.

The full report of the workshop can be accessed here: https://rimma.org/cartography-for-early-warning-and-crisis-management-report

Follow-up

Further meetings (virtual, hybrid, physical) are planned within the ICA and within the Commission Cartography in Early Warning and Crisis Management. Some of them are relevant for LAINAT regarding exchange of ideas, further development of warning platforms, cartography and platforms as communication tools, as well as regarding the composition of the ICA Commission Cartography in Early Warning and Crisis Management:

Eurocarto 2022, 19-21.9.2022 in Vienna Austria, organized by the Austrian Cartographic Commission (ÖKK), the German Cartographic Society (DGfK), the Swiss Cartographic Society (SGK) and the British Cartographic Society
31st ICC 2023, 13-18 August 2023, Cape Town South Africa

Category: Cartography in Early Warning and Crisis Management, Commission News

Tag: ICC2021 workshop, Italy, workshop report

31st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023): Call for Papers

The 31^st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023) will take place 13-18 August 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Call for abstracts and papers

The International Cartographic Association (ICA) invites you to share your research, practice and experiences in cartography and GIScience at the 31^st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023), to be held from 13 to 18 August 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Submissions of abstracts (1-2 pages) and full papers (8 pages) in English are accepted, following the respective ICA templates at https://www.ica-conference-publications.net/ica_word_template.html. Abstracts and full papers will be peer reviewed by a minimum of two experts in the field against the following criteria: scientific originality, potential interest to the community, proper documentation of prior work, clarity of presentation, technical correctness and correct use of language. Authors of accepted abstracts and papers will be invited to present their work in English at the ICC 2023, either as oral presentation or as poster. The presenting author must register for the conference. Registered accompanying persons will receive one complementary entry to one technical session of their choice, such as to support a speaker when delivering their presentation.

Accepted abstracts and papers that have been revised to address reviewer comments, will be published in one of the following ICA publications:

Important dates

5 December 2022 – Submission of full papers closes
12 December 2022 – Submission of abstracts closes
February 2023 – Conference registration opens
28 February 2023 – Notification of acceptance
8 May 2023 – Submission of revised abstracts and papers
15 May 2023 – Early Bird registration closes
15 May 2023 – Registration deadline for presenters of abstracts, papers and posters

The link to the submission site and further details about the ICC 2023 will soon be available on the conference website at http://icc2023.org/.

For any queries or more information, please contact scientific-committee@icc2023.org.

Category: General News

Tag: cfp, ICC2023, South Africa

Registration is open for GeoCart’2022

Kia ora!

The New Zealand Cartographic Society is proud to announce that registration is now open for GeoCart’2022, Aotearoa New Zealand’s 10th National Cartographic Conference. The event will convene in Wellington from 24-26 August at the fantastic facilities of the Tiakiwai Conference Centre in the National Library of New Zealand. The theme this year is Uncharted Frontiers: Cartographic Innovation and Discovery.

GeoCart’2022 aims to bring together a wide cross-section of professionals, researchers, and enthusiasts engaged in cartography, map curatorship and research, geovisualisation, and GIScience. Participants will hear about the latest developments and research, learn about current and upcoming projects and products, network with their counterparts in the greater community, and develop a deeper understanding of cartography and mapping.

To celebrate its landmark 10th anniversary, GeoCart’2022 will feature commemorative presentations and a special book, collating the best papers as reviewed by an international scientific programme committee, to be published in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography series. Research and professional presentation abstracts will be published in the GeoCart’2022 Proceedings as part of the CartoPRESS Occasional Publication series.

We warmly invite you to join us in Wellington for this exciting and inspiring event!

All information about abstract submissions and registration can be found on the conference website: cartography.org.nz/geocart2022

We also invite you to stay in Wellington and attend the New Zealand Geospatial Research Conference (NZGRC 2022), to be held at Massey University from 29-30 August.

Category: Member News

Tag: New Zealand, New Zealand Cartographic Society