PhD Projects

The following list of ongoing and completed Ph.D. projects gives an impression of some of the research that is carried out by our graduate students. Responsible advisors are shown in brackets.

Hirschhofer, Simon
The influence of artificial illumination on nocturnal bird migration patterns
(Weibel, Ranacher / Schmid, Helm, Vogelwarte Sempach)
 

Georgescu, Alexandra
Spatial Accessibility Modelling for Inclusive Mobility
(Weibel, Allahbakhshi)

Changyu, Han 
Modeling restorative places from daily mobility data to explore functions of healthy aging.
(Weibel, Fu)

If not available below, PDFs of Ph.D. theses can be found in the library catalog of the University of Zurich.

Neureiter, Nico
Travelling with speakers through time and space: Spatio-temporal modelling of language change
(Ranacher, Weibel)
PDF (PDF, 42 MB)

Zhou, Zhiyong
Hierarchical Modeling of Indoor Spaces: Towards Route Communication at Multiple Levels of Detail for Navigation in Buildings
(Huang, Ghent University / Weibel)
PDF (PDF, 117 MB)

Technitis, Georgios
Which Route to Choose? Generating Context-Aware and Empirically Informed Random Trajectories to Investigate Movement
(Weibel)
PDF (PDF, 18 MB)

Sayidov, Azimjon
An Integrated Methodology for Automated Generalization of Geological Maps
(Weibel)
PDF (PDF, 13 MB)

Allahbakhshi, Hoda
Using Multi-Sensor Tracking Data to Analyze Human Mobility and Activity Behavior
(Weibel / Martin, Psychology)
PDF (PDF, 7 MB)

Aliakbarian, Meysam 
Abstraction and Cartographic Generalization of Geographic User-Generated Content
Use-Case Motivated Investigations for Mobile Users
(Weibel, Purves)
PDF  (PDF, 11 MB)

Burkhard, Oliver
Towards Passive Tracking and Analyses of Human Mobility at Population Scale
(Weibel)
PDF  (PDF, 13 MB)

Fillekes, Michelle
GPS - Based Assessment of Daily Mobility for Healthy Aging
(Weibel / Martin, Psychology)
PDF  (PDF, 9 MB)

Jeszenszky, Peter

Quantitative modeling of geographic influences on morphosyntactic area formation in Swiss German
(Weibel/ Glaser, German Dept.)
PDF (PDF, 71 MB)

Kay, Sonja
Assessment of Ecosystem Services provided by Agroforestry Systems at the Landscape Scale
(Herzog, Agroscope / Weibel)
PDF  (PDF, 4 MB)

Rohrbach, Benjamin
Assessing Participatory Mapping and Multi Criteria Evaluation for Land Use Change Analysis 
(Laube / Weibel)
PDF (PDF, 17 MB)

Soleymani, Ali
Cross-Scale Analysis In Classification And Segmentation Of Movement
(Weibel)
PDF (PDF, 8 MB)

Bereuter, Pia
Quadtree-based Real-time Point Generalisation for Web and Mobile Mapping
(Weibel / Burghardt, TU Dresden)
PDF (PDF, 19 MB)

Venkateswaran, Ramya 
Extracting and Linking Locations and Activities from the Geospatial Web 
(Weibel / Purves / Burghardt, TU Dresden) 
PDF (PDF, 6 MB)

Gschwend, Christian

Relating Movement to Geographic Context – Effects of Preprocessing, Relation Methods and Scale
(Laube / Weibel / Purves)
PDF (PDF, 18 MB)

Dodge, Somayeh
Spatio-Temporal Pattern Analysis of Moving Point Objects 
(Weibel / Fabrikant) 
PDF (PDF, 14 MB)

Lüscher, Patrick
Providing Enriched Spatial Data - Ontology driven Recognition of Urban Structures from Spatial Databases 
(Weibel / Burghardt) 
PDF (PDF, 8 MB)

Haller, Ruedi
Integratives Geoinformationsmanagement in der Schutzgebietsforschung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der räumlichen Genauigkeit 
(Allgöwer / Imfeld / Weibel) 
PDF (PDF, 11 MB)

Straumann, Ralph
Extraction and characterisation of landforms from digital elevation models: Fiat parsing the elevation field
(Purves / Weibel / Korup, SLF) 
PDF (PDF, 9965 KB)

Hebeler, Felix 
Modelling Topographic Uncertainty: Impacts on Large Scale Environmental Modelling
(Purves / Weibel)
PDF (PDF, 11 MB)

Syed, Awase Khirni 
Exploratory Representations for Geographic Information Retrieved from the Internet
(Weibel / Purves)​​​​​​​
PDF (PDF, 9 MB)

Edwardes, Alistair
Re-placing Location: Geographic Perspectives in Location Based Services 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Dr. D. Burghardt) 
PDF (PDF, 9 MB)

Neun, Moritz
Data Enrichment for Adaptive Map Generalization Using Web Services 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Dr. D. Burghardt) 
PDF (PDF, 4 MB)

Steiniger, Stefan
Enabling Pattern-Aware Automated Map Generalization 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Dr. D. Burghardt) 
PDF (PDF, 20 MB)

Isenegger, Daniel
IPODLAS - A framework for coupling Temporal Simulation Systems, Virtual Reality, and Geographic Information Systems 
(Dr. B. Allgöwer / Prof. R. Weibel) 
PDF (PDF, 8 MB)

Laube, Patrick
Analysing Point Motion - Spatio-Temporal Data Mining of Geospatial Lifelines 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Dr. B. Allgöwer / Dr. St. Imfeld) 
PDF (PDF, 9 MB)

Leyk, Stefan
Computing the Past - Utilizing Historical Data Sources for Map-Based Retrospective Landscape Research
(Prof. R. Weibel / Dr. R. Boesch, WSL / Dr. N. Zimmermann, WSL)
PDF (PDF, 11 MB)

Maggioni, Margherita
Avalance Release Areas and Their Influence on Uncertainty in Avalanche Hazard Mapping 
(Dr. U. Gruber, SLF / Dr. R. Purves / Prof. R. Weibel) 
PDF (PDF, 17 MB)

Walz, Ariane
Land use modelling for an integrated approach to regional development in the Swiss Alps 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Dr. R. Purves / Dr. P. Bebi, SLF / Dr. S. Kytzia) 
PDF  (PDF, 4 MB)

Hugentobler, Marco
Terrain Modelling with Triangle Based Free-Form Surfaces 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Dr. R. Purves / Dr. B. Schneider, University of Basel) 
PDF (PDF, 4 MB)

Cecconi, Alessandro
Integration of Cartographic Generalization and Multi-Scale Databases for Enhanced Web Mapping
(Prof. Dr. R. Weibel / Dr. D. Burghardt) 
PDF (PDF, 2 MB)

Galanda, Martin
Automated Polygon Generalization in a Multi Agent System 
(Prof. Dr. R. Weibel / Dr. D. Burghardt) 
PDF (PDF, 2 MB)

Martinoni, Daria
Quality Management in Digital Terrain Modelling 
(Prof. R. Weibel,  Dr. Bernhard Schneider)
PDF (PDF, 22 MB)

Bachmann, Andreas
GIS-based Wildland Fire Risk Analysis 
(Prof. Dr. R. Weibel / Dr. B. Allgöwer) 
PDF (PDF, 1 MB)

Bader, Mattias
Energy Minimizing Methods for Feature Displacement in Map Generalization 
(Prof. Dr. R. Weibel / Prof. K. Brassel) 
PDF (PDF, 5 MB)

Brazile, Frank
Semantic Infrastructure and Methods to Support Quality Evaluation in Cartographic Generalization
(Prof. R. Weibel) 
PDF (PDF, 2 MB)

Imfeld, Stephan
Time, Points and Space - towards a better Analysis of Wildlife Data in GIS
(Prof. K. Brassel / Dr. B. Allgöwer / Prof. B. Nievergelt, Institute of Zoology) 
PDF (PDF, 40 MB)

Bucher, Felix
Regionenbasierte Wahl und Parametrisierung von Interpolationsmodellen 
(Prof. Dr. K. Brassel / Prof. R. Weibel)
PDF

Dutton, Geoffrey
Working Through the Scales -- A Hierarchical Coordinate System for Digital Map Data 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Prof. K. Brassel)
PDF (PDF, 11 MB)
A reformatted and slightly condensed version of this monograph was published as:
Dutton, Geoffrey H. (1999)
A Hierarchical Coordinate System for Geoprocessing and Cartography, Lecture Notes in Earth
Sciences 79, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 3-540-64980-8

Schneider, Bernhard
Geomorphologisch plausible Rekonstruktion der digitalen Repräsentation von Geländeoberflächen aus Höhenliniendaten 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Prof. Dr. K. Brassel)
PDF

Westort, Caroline
Methods for Sculpting Digital Topographic Surfaces 
(Prof. R. Weibel / Prof. K. Brassel / Prof. S. Ervin, Harvard University) 
PDF (PDF, 11 MB)

Bosshard, Walter
Homogenisierung klimatologischer Zeitreihen, dargelegt am Beispiel der relativen Sonnenscheindauer1997
(Prof. K. Brassel / Dr.  G. Gensler and Dr. W. Kirchhofer, SMA)
PDF

Brändli, Martin
Modelle und Methoden für die Extraktion geomorphologischer und hydrologischer Objekte aus digitalen Geländemodellen 
(Prof. Dr. K. Brassel / Prof. R. Weibel)
PDF

Vckovski, Andrej
Interoperable and Distributed Geoprocessing
(Prof. Dr. K. Brassel / Prof. R. Weibel)
PDF
A reformatted and slightly condensed version of this monograph was published as:
Vckovski, Andrej (1998)
Interoperable and Distributed Geoprocessing in GIS.
London: CRC Press, ISBN 9780429078996

Bär, Hans Rudolf
Interaktive Bearbeitung von Geländeoberflächen — Konzepte, Methoden, Versuche
(Prof. Dr. K. Brassel / Prof. R. Weibel)
PDF