This paper explains the unified approach to cartographic visualization which has been used to develop the Project Argus software. It involves real-time, interactive analysis based on graphic representations of data. ViSC systems have several definitive features, notably the capacity to interrogate images on the screen, interact with and control a representation, re-express the data in numerous ways, and the ability to produce multiple alternative and linked views.
Spatial scientists have an interest in the nature of distributions and processes in time and space.
Yet this legacy means that their methods of mapping often remain close to the tradition, and they have been relatively slow in their application of many of the ViSC techniques to their information. Maps have traditionally been used both to store geographic information, and as a means of analysing spatial distributions and processes. The effort required to create a complex map has meant that single representations have been used for both objectives. Considerable research effort has gone into achieving cartographic products from which value can be read, and patterns detected for numerous different variables. Even with the advent of digital spatial information and huge data sets which contain massive amounts of complex temporal and spatial behaviour much endeavour has gone into computational reproductions of traditional, manual cartography.