Creating Geo-enabled Hand-drawn Maps: An Experiment of User-generated Mobile Mapping
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Lu, M.; 2Arikawa, M.
1CSIS, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO Email: lu@csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
2CSIS, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO Email: arikawa@csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Abstract
User-generated content (UGC) has become an important component of today’s location-based services (LBS). Current mobile LBS applications mainly utilize web mappings (such as Google Maps™, Apple Maps™, and so on) as base maps, and the UGC is usually bound to pinpoints on basis of the web mappings. This point-base map application mode has restricted the variety of UGC, and the current web mappings lack diversity and freedom in map representation. On the other hand, various maps can be found in the off-line world, such as traffic maps, illustrated tourist maps, historic maps and even hand-drawn maps. Comparing to current web mappings, such analog maps are usually more contextual, as they have specific themes in certain cultural backgrounds, and are designed for certain user groups and areas, but with lower geometric accuracy. If these maps can be used appropriately as the base maps of the UGC with related themes, it can be easier for users to understand the context, and lead to better spatial knowledge conveying. Furthermore, these analog maps, espe-cially the user-created maps, should also be considered as one type of UGC to be shared and used in mobile LBS. The authors have proposed a Human-Centered Mobile Mapping (HCMM) framework to integrate smartphones’ positioning functions with various maps including hand-drawn maps. The framework is able to extend the current extent of UGC to include user-created maps, and to increase the diversity of maps in mobile environments. With the mobile application pro-totype Manpo, user experiments of creating geo-enabled hand-drawn maps have been conducted to college students who have little background knowledge of cartography. The experiments have proved the usability and functionality of the HCMM framework and its prototype Manpo, as the par-ticipants can create geo-enabled hand-drawn maps without difficulties. However, the experiments also revealed that the mistakes and large distor-tions in map drawing and the improper POI placement by the users can strongly influence the quality of positioning on the user-created maps, when Manpo is operated by non-professional content creators. In spite of this, the user experiment using the modified Manpo Contents still shows the effectiveness of Manpo from the satisfaction of users, so as the applica-tion can provide enough accuracy of positioning. Finally, the students have shown that their creativity in composing their own mobile mappings has been stimulated by Manpo. The improvements of positioning using additional control points and mul-tiple methods can increase the tolerance of users’ mistakes and errors of control points to achieve better accuracy, but it will also be a trade-off with the easiness of editing georeferences by non-professional users. In our fu-ture researches, friendly and effective user interfaces need to be designed to assist content authors to make correct georeferences. At the same time, well-designed guidelines are necessary to provide suggestions of the princi-ples for deploying control points more properly and accurately. Finally, we expect our approach can contribute to establishing new mobile mapping platforms, which will involve cartographers, illustrators, ordinary users and communities, to enrich the diversity of maps in mobile environments.