Route Packing: Geospatially-Accurate Visualization of Route Networks

TL;DR

Route packing is a new visualization method that displays multiple routes on a map while maintaining their geographic accuracy, identity, and direction, improving route tracing performance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel geospatial visualization technique that effectively visualizes multiple routes simultaneously with minimal crossings and clear encoding.

Findings

Optimal visual parameters identified for route tracing

Technique reduces route crossings and overlaps

Improves user performance in route identification

Abstract

We present route packing, a novel (geo)visualization technique for displaying several routes simultaneously on a geographic map while preserving the geospatial layout, identity, directionality, and volume of individual routes. The technique collects variable-width route lines side by side while minimizing crossings, encodes them with categorical colors, and decorates them with glyphs to show their directions. Furthermore, nodes representing sources and sinks use glyphs to indicate whether routes stop at the node or merely pass through it. We conducted a crowd-sourced user study investigating route tracing performance with road networks visualized using our route packing technique. Our findings highlight the visual parameters under which the technique yields optimal performance.