Computational and Visual Support for Geographical Knowledge Construction: Filling in the gaps between exploration and explanation

Although many different types of data mining tools have been developed for geographic analysis, the broader perspective of geographic knowledge discoverythe stages required and their computational supporthave been largely overlooked. This paper describes the process of knowledge construction as a number of inter-related activities and the support of these activities in an integrated visual and computational environment, GeoVISTA Studio. Results are presented showing examples of each stage in the knowledge construction process and a summary of the inter-relationships between visualization, computation, representation and reasoning is provided