How to Visualise Space and Time in “modern” Maps?

Nowadays it becomes more and more important to combine spatial information with time related information. In a project (master thesis) with the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) of Lower Saxony we have developed a map server based on the open source CartoWeb system which especially can visualise time related information. The LKA of Lower Saxony has the problem how to provide their investigators with 2D maps which presents information about when, where, how fast, how long, or the encounter of something occurs? These online maps have to be derived automatically from a database which stores observations of suspects and information about sites of crime. First solutions of this master thesis to present the duration, speed, and encounter of observed objects or persons in 2D maps have shown that standard visualisation techniques of map servers or geoinformation systems reach their limits. Based on these experiences we have started to investigate the possibilities of connecting modern visualisation techniques with standard geoinformation systems to overcome such problems.