{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,2]],"date-time":"2026-03-02T20:06:04Z","timestamp":1772481964475,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":63,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,27]],"date-time":"2020-05-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1590537600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["MTI"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Digitalization in schools requires a rethinking of teaching materials and methods in all subjects. This upheaval also concerns traditional print media, like school atlases used in geography classes. In this work, we examine the cartographic technological feasibility of extending a printed school atlas with digital content by augmented reality (AR). While previous research rather focused on topographic three-dimensional (3D) maps, our prototypical application for Android tablets complements map sheets of the Swiss World Atlas with thematically related data. We follow a natural marker approach using the AR engine Vuforia and the game engine Unity. We compare two workflows to insert geo-data, being correctly aligned with the map images, into the game engine. Next, the imported data are transformed into partly animated 3D visualizations, such as a dot distribution map, curved lines, pie chart billboards, stacked cuboids, extruded bars, and polygons. Additionally, we implemented legends, elements for temporal and thematic navigation, a screen capture function, and a touch-based feature query for the user interface. We evaluated our prototype in a usability experiment, which showed that secondary school students are as effective, interested, and sustainable with printed as with augmented maps when solving geographic tasks.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/mti4020023","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,28]],"date-time":"2020-05-28T10:02:45Z","timestamp":1590660165000},"page":"23","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Augmenting Printed School Atlases with Thematic 3D Maps"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"4","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7558-3621","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Raimund","family":"Schn\u00fcrer","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"C\u00e9dric","family":"Dind","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Stefan","family":"Schalcher","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Pascal","family":"Tschudi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0453-8743","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lorenz","family":"Hurni","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Schul- und Sportdepartement, Stadt Z\u00fcrich KITS-Tablets. Available online: https:\/\/www.stadt-zuerich.ch\/ssd\/de\/index\/volksschule\/kits_informatik_computer\/infrastruktur\/kitstablets.html."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Deutschschweizer Erziehungsdirektoren-Konferenz Lehrplan 21. Available online: https:\/\/www.lehrplan21.ch."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"Johnson, L., Becker, S.A., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2020, May 22). BYOD, NMC Horizon Report: 2014 K-12 Edition, Available online: https:\/\/eric.ed.gov\/?id=ED559369."},{"key":"ref_4","first-page":"1321","article-title":"A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays","volume":"E77-D","author":"Milgram","year":"1994","journal-title":"Ieice Trans. Inf. Syst."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"355","DOI":"10.1162\/pres.1997.6.4.355","article-title":"A Survey of Augmented Reality","volume":"6","author":"Azuma","year":"1997","journal-title":"Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1105","DOI":"10.1080\/1369118X.2014.881903","article-title":"Augmented regionalism: Ingress as geomediated gaming narrative","volume":"17","author":"Chess","year":"2014","journal-title":"Inf. Commun. Soc."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1201","DOI":"10.1109\/TVCG.2015.2459871","article-title":"Live Texturing of Augmented Reality Characters from Colored Drawings","volume":"21","author":"Magnenat","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Inversini, A., and Schegg, R. (2016). Augmented Reality at Cultural Heritage sites. Proceedings of the Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2016, Springer International Publishing.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-28231-2"},{"key":"ref_9","first-page":"4","article-title":"The Emergence of Augmented Reality (AR) as a Storytelling Medium in Journalism","volume":"15","author":"Pavlik","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Commun. Monogr."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2211","DOI":"10.1001\/jama.292.18.2214-c","article-title":"Augmented-Reality\u2013Assisted Laparoscopic Adrenalectomy","volume":"292","author":"Marescaux","year":"2004","journal-title":"JAMA"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1533","DOI":"10.1007\/s00779-012-0599-x","article-title":"Smart Vidente: Advances in mobile augmented reality for interactive visualization of underground infrastructure","volume":"17","author":"Schall","year":"2013","journal-title":"Pers. Ubiquit. Comput."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"84","DOI":"10.1109\/MCG.2017.3271458","article-title":"A Virtual Try-On System for Prescription Eyeglasses","volume":"37","author":"Zhang","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl."},{"key":"ref_13","unstructured":"Cruz-Cunha, M.M., Varaj\u00e3o, J., Powell, P., and Martinho, R. (2011). Virtual Fitting Room Augmented Reality Techniques for e-Commerce. Proceedings of the ENTERprise Information Systems, Springer."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Tang, J.K.T., Lau, W., Chan, K., and To, K. (2014, January 9\u201312). AR interior designer: Automatic furniture arrangement using spatial and functional relationships. Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Virtual Systems Multimedia (VSMM), Hong Kong, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/VSMM.2014.7136652"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Maquil, V., Psik, T., and Wagner, I. (2008). The ColorTable: A Design Story. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, ACM.","DOI":"10.1145\/1347390.1347412"},{"key":"ref_16","first-page":"140","article-title":"Augmented-Reality-Based Indoor Navigation: A Comparative Analysis of Handheld Devices Versus Google Glass","volume":"47","author":"Rehman","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Hum. -Mach. Syst."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.compedu.2017.04.003","article-title":"Augmented reality and pedestrian navigation through its implementation in m-learning and e-learning: Evaluation of an educational program in Chile","volume":"111","year":"2017","journal-title":"Comput. Educ."},{"key":"ref_18","first-page":"502","article-title":"Augmented maps","volume":"34","author":"Bobrich","year":"2002","journal-title":"Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Morrison, A., Oulasvirta, A., Peltonen, P., Lemmela, S., Jacucci, G., Reitmayr, G., N\u00e4s\u00e4nen, J., and Juustila, A. (2009). Like Bees Around the Hive: A Comparative Study of a Mobile Augmented Reality Map. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM.","DOI":"10.1145\/1518701.1518991"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Reitmayr, G., Eade, E., and Drummond, T. (2005, January 5\u20138). Localisation and interaction for augmented maps. Proceedings of the Fourth IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR\u201905), Vienna, Austria.","DOI":"10.1109\/ISMAR.2005.39"},{"key":"ref_21","unstructured":"Adithya, C., Kowsik, K., Namrata, D., Nageli, V.S., Shrivastava, S., and Rakshit, S. (2010, January 27\u201329). Augmented reality approach for paper map visualization. Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Communication and Computational Intelligence (INCOCCI), Erode, India. Available online: https:\/\/ieeexplore.ieee.org\/abstract\/document\/5738756\/."},{"key":"ref_22","unstructured":"Uchiyama, H., Saito, H., Servi\u00e8res, M., and Moreau, G. (2009, January 20\u201322). AR GIS on a physical map based on map image retrieval using LLAH tracking. Proceedings of the 11th IAPR Conference on Machine Vision Applications, MVA 2009, Yokohama, Japan. Available online: http:\/\/www.mva-org.jp\/Proceedings\/2009CD\/program.html."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ufkes, A., and Fiala, M. (2013, January 28\u201331). A Markerless Augmented Reality System for Mobile Devices. Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Computer and Robot Vision, CRV 2013, Regina, SK, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/CRV.2013.51"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"256","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isprsjprs.2009.05.006","article-title":"Augmented paper maps: Exploring the design space of a mixed reality system","volume":"65","author":"Paelke","year":"2010","journal-title":"Isprs J. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"18","DOI":"10.1016\/j.aei.2015.10.005","article-title":"Combining visual natural markers and IMU for improved AR based indoor navigation","volume":"31","author":"Neges","year":"2017","journal-title":"Adv. Eng. Inform."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chatain, J., Demangeat, M., Brock, A.M., Laval, D., and Hachet, M. (2015). Exploring Input Modalities for Interacting with Augmented Paper Maps. Proceedings of the 27th Conference on L\u2019Interaction Homme-Machine, ACM.","DOI":"10.1145\/2820619.2825002"},{"key":"ref_27","unstructured":"H\u00e4berling, C. (2003). Topographische 3D-Karten: Thesen f\u00fcr kartographische Gestaltungsgrunds\u00e4tze. [Ph.D. Thesis, ETH Zurich]."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Luebke, D., Reddy, M., Cohen, J.D., Varshney, A., Watson, B., and Huebner, R. (2003). Terrain Level of Detail. Level of Detail for 3D Graphics, Morgan Kaufmann.","DOI":"10.1016\/B978-155860838-2\/50009-1"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Parish, Y.I.H., and M\u00fcller, P. (2001). Procedural Modeling of Cities. Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, ACM.","DOI":"10.1145\/383259.383292"},{"key":"ref_30","unstructured":"Sieber, R., Schn\u00fcrer, R., Eichenberger, R., and Hurni, L. (2013, January 25\u201330). The Power of 3D Real-Time Visualization in Atlases\u2014Concepts, Techniques and Implementation. Proceedings of the 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresden, Germany. Available online: https:\/\/icaci.org\/files\/documents\/ICC_proceedings\/ICC2013\/."},{"key":"ref_31","unstructured":"Sandvik, B. (2008). Using KML for Thematic Mapping. [Master\u2019s Thesis, University of Edinburgh]. Available online: http:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/1842\/2464."},{"key":"ref_32","first-page":"1055","article-title":"3D Charts \u2013 Taxonomy and Implementation in a Virtual Globe","volume":"67","author":"Eichenberger","year":"2015","journal-title":"Rev. Bras. De Cartogr."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"117","DOI":"10.5821\/ace.11.33.4686","article-title":"Cultural heritage 3D modelling and visualisation within an augmented reality environment, based on geographic information technologies and mobile platforms","volume":"11","author":"Marques","year":"2017","journal-title":"Archit. City Environ."},{"key":"ref_34","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Westermann-Gruppe Zoom-App. Available online: http:\/\/www.zoom-app.de."},{"key":"ref_35","unstructured":"Liarokapis, F., Greatbatch, I., Mountain, D., Brujic-Okretic, V., and Raper, J. (2005, January 6\u20138). Mobile augmented reality techniques for GeoVisualisation. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information Visualisation (IV\u201905), London, UK."},{"key":"ref_36","first-page":"1","article-title":"An efficient flood dynamic visualization approach based on 3D printing and augmented reality","volume":"12","author":"Zhang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Int. J. Digit. Earth"},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"119","DOI":"10.1162\/1054746021470577","article-title":"Explorations in the Use of Augmented Reality for Geographic Visualization","volume":"11","author":"Hedley","year":"2002","journal-title":"Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"201","DOI":"10.1007\/s10055-010-0158-6","article-title":"In-Place Augmented Reality","volume":"15","author":"Bergig","year":"2011","journal-title":"Virtual Real."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Buchroithner, M., Prechtel, N., and Burghardt, D. (2014). Augmented Reality Visualization of Archeological Data. Cartography from Pole to Pole: Selected Contributions to the XXVIth International Conference of the ICA, Dresden 2013, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-32618-9"},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wiehr, F., Daiber, F., Kosmalla, F., and Kr\u00fcger, A. (2017). ARTopos: Augmented Reality Terrain Map Visualization for Collaborative Route Planning. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers, ACM.","DOI":"10.1145\/3123024.3124446"},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"W\u00fcest, R., and Nebiker, S. (2017, January 3). Geospatial Augmented Reality for the interactive exploitation of large-scale walkable orthoimage maps in museums. Proceedings of the International Cartographic Conference (ICC), Washington, DC, USA.","DOI":"10.5194\/ica-proc-1-124-2018"},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"313","DOI":"10.1080\/00087041.2017.1411417","article-title":"Augmented Reality and Maps: New Possibilities for Engaging with Geographic Data","volume":"54","author":"Stock","year":"2017","journal-title":"Cartogr. J."},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Roy, S., Sarkar, P., and Dey, S. (2017). Augmented Learning Experience for School Education. Encycl. Comput. Graph. Games, 1\u20137.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-08234-9_88-1"},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"de Almeida Pereira, G.H., Bravo, J.V.M., and Centeno, J.A.S. (2018). A User Study of a Prototype of a Spatial Augmented Reality System for Education and Interaction with Geographic Data. Big Data Cogn. Comput., 2.","DOI":"10.3390\/bdcc2030020"},{"key":"ref_45","unstructured":"Schroth, O., and Zhang, C. (2014). Augmented Landform\u2013An Educational Augmented Reality Tool for Landscape Architecture Students. Peer Reviewed Proceedings of Digital Landscape Architecture 2014 at ETH Zurich, Herbert Wichmann Verlag."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Carbonell-Carrera, C., Jaeger, A.J., and Shipley, T.F. (2018). 2D Cartography Training: Has the Time Come for a Paradigm Shift?. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf., 7.","DOI":"10.3390\/ijgi7050197"},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"259","DOI":"10.1080\/15230406.2016.1145556","article-title":"Augmented reality as a digital teaching environment to develop spatial thinking","volume":"44","author":"Asensio","year":"2017","journal-title":"Cartogr. Geogr. Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_48","unstructured":"Hurni, L. (2017). Schweizer Weltatlas, Schweizerische Konferenz der kantonalen Erziehungsdirektoren (EDK), Lehrmittelverlag Z\u00fcrich."},{"key":"ref_49","unstructured":"Gartner, G., Jobst, M., and Huang, H. (2016). Atlas of Switzerland Goes Online and 3D\u2014Concept, Architecture and Visualization Methods. Progress in Cartography, Springer International Publishing. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography."},{"key":"ref_50","unstructured":"Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) Vuforia Engine (2020, May 22). Developer Portal. Available online: https:\/\/developer.vuforia.com\/."},{"key":"ref_51","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) Optimizing Target Detection and Tracking Stability. Available online: https:\/\/library.vuforia.com\/articles\/Solution\/Optimizing-Target-Detection-and-Tracking-Stability.html."},{"key":"ref_52","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Unity Technologies Unity. Available online: https:\/\/unity.com\/."},{"key":"ref_53","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Unity Technologies Vuforia Hardware and Software Requirements. Available online: https:\/\/docs.unity3d.com\/2019.1\/Documentation\/Manual\/vuforia_requirements.html."},{"key":"ref_54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lalonde, J.-F. (2018, January 16\u201319). Deep Learning for Augmented Reality. Proceedings of the 2018 17th Workshop on Information Optics (WIO), Qu\u00e9bec, QC, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/WIO.2018.8643463"},{"key":"ref_55","unstructured":"Martedi, S., and Saito, H. (2011, January 13\u201315). Towards bendable augmented maps. Proceedings of the 12th IAPR Conference on Machine Vision Applications, MVA 2011, Nara, Japan. Available online: http:\/\/www.mva-org.jp\/Proceedings\/2011CD\/program.html."},{"key":"ref_56","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) Comparison of Device and Cloud Databases. Available online: https:\/\/library.vuforia.com\/articles\/Solution\/Comparison-of-Device-and-Cloud-Databases.html."},{"key":"ref_57","first-page":"252","article-title":"Toward appropriate representations of quantitative data in virtual environments","volume":"46","author":"Bleisch","year":"2011","journal-title":"Cartogr. Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Geovisualization"},{"key":"ref_58","unstructured":"(2020, May 22). Bundesamt f\u00fcr Sozialversicherungen Jugendliche und Medien\u2014Fakten und Zahlen. Available online: https:\/\/www.jugendundmedien.ch\/digitale-medien\/fakten-zahlen.html."},{"key":"ref_59","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"48","DOI":"10.1177\/0165551512470043","article-title":"Will we be lost without paper maps in the digital age?","volume":"39","author":"Hurst","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_60","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"551","DOI":"10.1109\/TVCG.2016.2598920","article-title":"VLAT: Development of a Visualization Literacy Assessment Test","volume":"23","author":"Lee","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph."},{"key":"ref_61","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"41","DOI":"10.1016\/j.compedu.2012.10.024","article-title":"Current status, opportunities and challenges of augmented reality in education","volume":"62","author":"Wu","year":"2013","journal-title":"Comput. Educ."},{"key":"ref_62","unstructured":"Cron, J., Sieber, R., and Hurni, L. (2007, January 4\u201310). Guidelines to optimized graphical user interfaces of interactive atlases. Proceedings of the 23rd International Cartographic Conference, Moscow, Russia. Available online: https:\/\/icaci.org\/files\/documents\/ICC_proceedings\/ICC2007\/html\/Proceedings.htm."},{"key":"ref_63","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"41","DOI":"10.2167\/irgee186.0","article-title":"Conceptual Change in Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences through Mental Model Building: The Example of Groundwater","volume":"15","author":"Reinfried","year":"2006","journal-title":"Int. Res. Geogr. Environ. Educ."}],"container-title":["Multimodal Technologies and Interaction"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2414-4088\/4\/2\/23\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T09:33:13Z","timestamp":1760175193000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2414-4088\/4\/2\/23"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,27]]},"references-count":63,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,6]]}},"alternative-id":["mti4020023"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mti4020023","relation":{},"ISSN":["2414-4088"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2414-4088","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,27]]}}}