| Visualization of data is an important research tool in many fields of disciplines, as it enhances the understanding and enables interpretation of the studied subjects. Visualization is a challenging task on its own, and it is highly application-dependent.;In this thesis, we designed and implemented GeoSocialMap (available at http://geosocialmap.com), a web-based visualization tool that aims at visually representing social relationships embedded in geography. GeoSocialMap allows users to select geographical regions of interest, using a combination of attributes from a given data set. It then interactively shows a geographical map overlaid by highlighted spots and lines that represent these regions and their corresponding social ties. A social tie between two regions reflects the "friendship" (the interpretation of which is highly dependent on the dataset, e.g. it may indicate the frequency of interactions) among people residing in the regions. The width of the edge represents the tie strength.;As an example application, we visualize Facebook data using GeoSocialMap. |
