The final project is an individual project consisting of a bibliographic search on a selected topic. It will be evaluated through a written report of at most 6 pages excluding references and a video presentation of 8-10 minutes.

The topics available for the final project of the course are listed below. It is also possible to work on other topics suggested by students, provided the professor agrees.

Each student must choose a different topic. Topics will be assigned in the order they are requested to the professor.

Possible Topics

In addition to the sources or references mentioned for each specific topic, a good source of references on GIS that can be useful for many projects is spatialanalysisonline.com.

1. Spatial databases (assigned to G.P.A.)
Extensions needed to manage geographic data in a database.
Main spatial extensions for database engines available.
Deep dive into the functionalities offered by a specific product (e.g., PostGIS).
Possible initial source: Longley et al. (chapter 10).

2. Cartograms  (assigned to H.S.)
Definition, uses, and (some) algorithms for generating cartograms.
Very brief introduction in Longley et al. (chapter 13.3.2).
Better starting point: Tobler, W. (2004), Thirty Five Years of Computer Cartograms. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 94: 58–73. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.09401004.x. It is recommended to describe a specific algorithm for constructing cartograms, such as one of those by Van Kreveld and Speckmann.

3. Trajectory analysis: pattern analysis  (assigned to N.A.R and M.S.C.)
Detection of movement patterns in trajectories. Motivation and algorithms.
Possible initial source here. It is recommended to select a specific algorithm to detect a specific pattern, such as "leadership" or "flock" patterns.

4. Trajectory analysis: segmentation (assigned to A.F.C.P.)
Automatic methods for partitioning (segmenting) trajectories into homogeneous parts. Motivation and algorithms.
Possible initial source here, and in the references of the “related work” section of that paper.

5. Spatial index structures  (assigned to M.N.)
Focus on one of the most commonly used, such as R-trees, covering motivation, uses, and algorithms.
Brief introduction in Longley et al. (section 10.7.2). Original work on R-trees here.

6. Point pattern analysis  (assigned to J.W.)
Introduction to the topic and presentation of the most important methods.
Possible source: O’Sullivan & Unwin, Chapter 5.

7. Route planning for navigation systems  (assigned to M.J.B.)
Routing algorithm and necessary adaptations for large road networks.
Source: H. Bast, D. Delling, A. Goldberg, M. Müller-Hannemann, T. Pajor, P. Sanders, D. Wagner, and R. Werneck. “Route Planning in Transportation Networks”. Technical Report MSR-TR-2014-4, Microsoft Research. Available here. It is recommended to select only one relevant algorithm, and explain it in detail.

8. Coordinate systems and map projections  (assigned to M.V.B.)
Include the main projections. There are many sources on this topic.
One possible source:  A. Jon Kimerling, Aileen R. Buckley, Phillip C. Muehrcke, Juliana O. Muehrcke. “Map Use: Reading, Analysis, Interpretation”, 7th edition, ESRI Press, 2011. Chapters 3 and 4.
See also World Map Generator and The True Size.

9. Remote sensing in GIS  (assigned to O.E.C.D.)
Most important remote sensing methods used in GIS. Applications. Sources of error and methods used to correct them.
There is plenty of information online. A possible initial reference is this tutorial on Remote Sensing and GIS.

10. Selected topics from book GIS Algorithms
Presentation of a topic from the book GIS Algorithms by Xiao. Possible options include: Spatial interpolation (Chapter 8-- (assigned to A.J.M.) ), Spatial patterns and analysis (Chapter 9 (available)) or Quadtrees (Chapter 6-- (available) ). To be determined with the professor.

11. Privacy and GIS  (assigned to E.M. and to A.B.)
Study the privacy issues related to the use of GIS and the publication of geographic data. Possible source (just an example): A. Curtis, J.W. Mills, M. Leitner, Spatial confidentiality and GIS: re-engineering mortality locations from published maps about Hurricane Katrina. International Journal of Health Geographics 5:44, 2006.

12. Hands-on GIS software 
Open-ended work consisting of researching how to perform some of the operations covered in the course using a GIS software. Possible topics: map overlay, terrain conversion. Topic to be agreed with the professor. One recommended software is the open-source software QGIS (assigned to A.R.G.), but other options are possible. People interested in cartography are encouraged to research and present MapServer (assigned to S.R.W.S.). The presentation must include a demonstration with real data. If you want to look into the main commercial GIS software, go with ArcGIS (UPC has some license agreement for ArcGIS). Another option is to focus on an open-source general GIS made in Spain, gvSIG.

13. Behind GIS software: GEOS library  (available)
GEOS is a C/C++ library for computational geometry with a focus on algorithms used in geographic information systems (GIS) software. It is used internally in many well-known GIS systems, such as GRASS GIS, MapServer and PostGIS. The focus on the project would be on presenting the library, an overview of its main functionalities, and on explaining some concrete algorithmic component (e.g, the buffering method). It would be nice to include a demonstration with real data.

14. Metro map generation  (assigned to S.M.)
Maps showing the transport infrastructure of a city, region, or country are a common occurrence. A prominent example are metro maps showing the metro lines in a city or metro area. Algorithmic methods to generate such maps (semi-)automatically are an interesting and active topic of study. An example of a paper describing a method that produces a layout and a labeling is the paper Drawing and Labeling High-Quality Metro Maps by Mixed-Integer Programming .

15. Labeling dynamic maps  (assigned to C.M.L.)
The problem of labeling maps has a long history. Nowadays the labeling of dynamic maps, i.e., maps that on a computer can be zoomed, rotated, filtered, etc. adds a new and challenging dimension to the problem. Active ranges form the basis for some of the more consistent and well studied approaches to handle this problem. To get an idea of the techniques developed to label dynamic maps, a good starting point is the paper Optimizing active ranges for consistent dynamic map labeling.

16. Time table based routing  (assigned to I.G.V.)
Routing in a road network captures only a part of the daily movements of people through the infrastructure of a city or country. Routing based on time tables to yield the fastest connections through the public transport services is an interesting problem with challenges different than the well-understood point-to-point road network navigation. The paper Round-Based Public Transit Routing can be a good starting point to read about the methods used to compute shortest paths in public transport networks.