Exploring Maps by Sounds

Using Parameter Mapping Sonification to Make Digital Elevation Models Audible

MSc Thesis Wordle

Thanks to digital revolution, maps and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are becoming more and more interactive and multimodal. Even though current technologies make it possible for blind and visual impaired people to perceive maps, sounds are still not standardly used yet to encode geographic information. This is surprising as the results of the current Master thesis show that sonification has an untapped potential to represent geographic data. Using Parameter Mapping Sonification (PMS) for representing a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) can indeed complement or replace visual impression.

The encouraging results suggest, contrary to own expectations and the results of prior research, that pitch can be successfully interpreted by users when it is applied to represent continuous spatial elevation data. Furthermore, pan was equally successful to represent the cursor’s location on the xy plane. Moreover, the study could reveal that domain knowledge and expertise are also important factors to consider to predict data exploration success with sonified displays.

This Master thesis received an award for outstanding scientific work from the Faculty of Science of the University of Zurich (UZH).

Sonification

The developed software including use instructions, the spatial data set for the highest complexity level, and the applied methods B/C are available as a JAVA applet on my website at UZH . The source code and the calculation of the variable operationalization are available on request from the first author.