Map-based visualization of live spatial sensor data collected from a Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is a promising application. This application requires samples from each sensor node. The specific WSN properties such as energy imply that the data collection and/or in-network processing should carefully address the trade-off between the energy/network overhead and the map accuracy. Accordingly, several map construction approaches have been proposed. Their efficiency/accuracy balance has been proved in the corresponding papers for a set of carefully selected parameters. To date there exists no quantitative comparative study that considers a wide range of protocol and network parameters in order to provide a comprehensive evaluation of existing strategies. In this paper, we present the first study to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of the available map construction approaches. © 2011 IEEE.