Cartography Master – Research Unit Cartography

14 May 2025

Award for Technical Excellence for MSc Cartography Students

Congratulations to our students Bea and Betty (14th intake) who won – together with three other students from TU Wien – the award for Technical Excellence within the Tech Design Sprint competition. The Tech Design Sprint 2025 took place from May 8–10 at the AK Bildungszentrum in Vienna. The event was organized by the Center for Technology & Society (CTS) in collaboration with AK Wien, and brought together interdisciplinary student teams under the theme: “Exploring Deep Tech for a Fair and Sustainable World”.

The group of Bea and Betty worked on Challenge #5: Energy. They designed an educational game called “Smooth Operators” about energy distribution in Vienna that included:

a map-based interface using real city locations;
mini-games that teach players how to, for instance, balance the electricity grid and avoid both overload and underuse;
dilemma cards based on real trade-offs in sustainability, user satisfaction, and available resources;
and exploration challenges that encourage players to engage with the city and reflect on energy use.

Since this was a 3-day sprint focused on design thinking, they didn’t develop the full game, but instead created a complete concept and mockups.

The idea is for the game to be embedded in the official website of Wiener Netze, the company responsible for electricity distribution in Vienna. It would use players’ answers to the dilemmas to reflect on the real-life decision-making of the grid operator. In the future, it could also offer space for players to share and discuss these decisions, supporting public awareness and engagement around energy topics.

Team members:
Beatriz Oliveira de Carvalho and Betty Selena Castro Benavides (MSc Cartography) | Charlotte Melzer, Theo März and Sofija Radojevic (other study programmes TU Wien).

10 March 202510 March 2025

Welcome to the 14th intake of the Cartography Master

Welcome to Vienna! On the 6th of March, the new intake of the International Master in Cartography program started their second semester at the Research Unit Cartography of the TU Wien.

The 31 students, from 24 different countries, will study with us in Vienna for four months. We are very glad to welcome them here and to exchange perspectives and knowledge on cartography!

Students of the 14th intake with Prof. Gartner (right) and the local coordinator, Sacha Schlumpf, MSc (left).

City tour with a professional guide, Jan Kepinski.

3 July 20243 July 2024

Farewell to the 13th intake of the Cartography Master students

The 28 students of the 13th intake of the International Master in Cartography have finished their second semester here at TU Wien!

We want to thank them warmly for all their hard work, and especially for their boundless creativity. Over the various courses during the semester, they produced maps of a particularly professional quality.

We wish them all the best for their third semester in Dresden, Germany, and look forward to seeing them again soon!

8 March 20248 March 2024

Welcome the 13th intake of the Cartography Master!

On the 7th of March, a new intake of the International Master in Cartography program started a new semester at the Research Unit Cartography of the TU Wien.

Twenty-eight students from 17 countries will study with us in Vienna for four months. We are very excited to exchange our different perspectives on cartography and to experience Vienna together!

Students of the 13th intake with Prof. Dr. Gartner (left) and the local coordinator, Sacha Schlumpf, MSc (right).

2 October 20232 October 2023

Cartography M.Sc. defences at TU Wien

Three students from the 11th intake of the Cartography Master’s program have recently successfully defended their master’s theses at our research unit.

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Moreover, celebrating the defence of our programme’s 200th graduate, Julia Schiller, was a special occasion. She defended the thesis on the topic “Typology of Map Functions” under the supervision of Prof. Georg Gartner.

Oskar Baumann introduced his thesis “The Nuances of Mapping Street Art – Developing a Web Map for Interactive Graffity Exploration”. His supervisors were Benjamin Wild and Prof. Norbert Pfeiffer from the Research Unit Photogrammetry.

Sacha Schlumpf presented his thesis “Space as a Metaphor”, supervised jointly by Prof. Georg Gartner and Jethro Lennox from HarperCollins Publishers in the UK. Thus, he concluded successful defences of his intake at TU Wien.

Congratulations to them, and all the best in their future explorations!

11 August 202315 August 2023

A gallery of the students’ digital cartographic projects

In the summer semester of 2023, students designed and developed digital cartographic projects within the LBS course. We are happy to share with you the gallery of the best projects.

“Crowded Space”

An interactive 3D view of the Earth by Cartography M.Sc. students Janek Łyczakowski, Lennart Kerl and Nicolás Martínez Heredia, which shows all active satellites and presents how humans have colonized and increasingly populated space with devices, combining it with storytelling to educate science for a broad audience.

“Live UBahn Vienna”

An animated web map with live information about the underground trains’ position in Vienna by Cartography M.Sc. students Luka Laval and Ander Palacios Fraile.

“SOS4ALL”

An application by Cartography M.Sc. students Isaac Newton Kissiedu, Ching-Ting Chia, and Yanning Wang to request emergency services in English in Austria. The team developed the dashboard with a map for emergency service and a mobile application for users to send emergency requests.

“Location-Based Odyssey”

A combination of an interactive map and a story map by Stefan Blochberger, Sophie Haselsteiner and Philipp Zehetgruber introduces the journey described in the Odyssey for younger audiences aged 10-14 years old.

“Austrian Castles”

An interactive web map with information about castles in Austria by Cartography M.Sc. students Samuel Darkwah Manu, Yi Zhen Chew, and Ulrike Holfeld.

“Follow your favorite artist around the world!”

An interactive map dashboard by Stefan Christl, Lorana Myslimi, and Helena Anna Hettegger lets you easily explore your favourite artists’ concert locations worldwide.

“Global Fungi”

The project by Cartography M.Sc. students Phoebe Ly, Dilara Bozkurt, and Zhenjiang Li utilizes the Global Fungi fungi NGS dataset to help scientists better analyze and visualize this data through a web map.

31 July 202331 July 2023

Congratulations to our graduates for receiving AGEO Award!

Cartography M.Sc. graduates Valerian Lange and Josè Pablo Ceballos received 1st and 2nd place in the AGEO Awards 2023 for the best master theses in the Geographic information field in Austria.

The award took place on July 4, at the GI Salzburg Conference at the University of Salzburg. This prize, awarded for the 14th time by the Austrian umbrella organization for geographical information AGEO, pursues the goal of promoting excellent graduates from Austrian universities in the field of spatial information science.

Awardees of the AGEO Awards 2023, Josè Pablo Ceballos is third from the left

The winner of the Award – Valerian Lange, a photo from his LinkedIn page.

You can find master theses on the Cartography M.Sc. website:

Valerian Lange’s: MapColPal – a color palette generation and testing tool for thematic maps

Josè Pablo Ceballos’: Understanding Relevance in Maps through the use of Knowledge Graphs

5 July 20235 July 2023

Farewell to the 12th intake of the Cartography Master students

Twenty students of the Cartography Master Programme have completed their semester in Vienna. In a farewell session on June 28, we looked back at the semester and the results of the students’ work. As a tradition, we had a students’ map exhibition during that session. We wish our students to enjoy their summer holidays and to return rested and ready for the third semester at TU Dresden!

3 July 20233 July 2023

Cartography Master students visit the UN office in Vienna

On June 28, the students of the Cartography Master programme visited the UN office in Vienna (UNOV). The chief of the UN-SPIDER Programme at UNOOSA in Vienna, Lóránt Czárán, gave the students an excursion in the exhibition space in UNOV. Then the visit continued in a conference room, where students listened to the presentations about the geospatial and cartography-related projects in the different UN offices.

Exhibition at UNOOSA, a copy of Neil Armstrong’s costume

Coen Bussink from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime gave a presentation, Collection and Sharing of Geospatial Data on Drugs and Crime, where he told how the office helps the national governments monitor drug plant cultivation and wildlife abuse. Ashraf Abushady, Senior Advisor on Digitalisation and AI from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) showed the presentation on UNIDO Digital Transformation and AI Strategies. It revealed the current trends in industrial development and how UNIDO supports countries in creating sustainable and hi-tech industries. Lóránt Czárán gave a talk about the Coordination of Global Geospatial Information Management across the UN System, where he described the challenges and the outcomes of the recently created UN Geospatial Network’s work. Finally, he presented the projects within the earth observation mission of the UNOOSA.

Lóránt Czárán, the chief of the UN-SPIDER Programme at UNOOSA

The UNOV officers answered all students’ questions about the different offices’ work and the work in the UNOV. They encouraged Cartography Master students to apply for jobs at the UN and advised them on the possible career tracks there. We thank the UNOOSA and Lóránt Czárán for introducing the insides of the comprehensive UN environment!

Cartography Master students with Lóránt Czárán

7 June 20237 June 2023

Penn State’s pandemic visualization workshop for Cartography MSc students

A group of students from Penn State visited our research group in the second week of May to give a workshop on working with big geospatial data of the pandemic. The workshop started on May 8 with a speech from Prof. Dr. Gartner about the current research in our group and a lecture from Dr. Kessler about his research on map projections. Dr. Kessler and Beth King, from the Geography Department of Penn State, introduced the assignment to students for the workshop: to develop a geographic visualisation of data related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students were divided into 4 groups: Penn State students were working together with Cartography MSc students.

Besides working on a workshop project, our guests from the Penn State and Cartography MSc students participated in other educational and social activities. On Tuesday, they visited the Globe Museum in Vienna and had dinner together in a traditional Viennese restaurant. On Wednesday PennState students visited the AR lab in the Geoinformation group of our department, where Dr. Marcelo de Lima Galvao presented his research on Geo AI with the Microsoft HoloLens.

The final presentation of the projects was on Thursday at TU Wien. Students produced four exciting projects. The first group, Team Globetrotter, presented an algorithm that ranked EU countries that were most vulnerable to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The prototype dashboard showed three investment areas: hospitals, vaccinations, and information.

The second group, GeoRelief, sought to provide COVID-19 vaccinations for young Ukrainians in response to the ongoing Russian occupation that responds to a clearly defined humanitarian need. They introduced a dashboard that would help determine populations with the most need of COVID-19 vaccines, representing data and tools gleaned from these organisations.

The third group, SeelenGarten, presented a clear mission and vision statement, linking the variables of green spaces with COVID-19 mental health impacts. They presented visuals such as sample geovisualization tools, NDVI details, and data related to the tree canopy and green spaces in their prototype.

The fourth group, Spatial Help, addressed the public health challenge of dealing with the aftermath of COVID-19. This team presented a fact-based characterization of COVID-19’s impact on mental health. Their dashboard’s representation of mental health facilities, showed the location of nearby service providers with the use of a quantitative modelling approach to measure vulnerable populations.

Cartography Research Group thanks the workshop organisers Dr. Kessler, Beth King and Brookelynn Constant as well as the Penn State students for visiting our research group and Cartography MSc students for their fruitful collaboration!