Abstract
This chapter summarises cartographic generalisation operators used to generalise geospatial data. It includes a review of recent approaches that have been tested or implemented to generalise networks, points, or groups. Emphasis is placed on recent advances that permit additional flexibility to tailor generalisation processing in particular geographic contexts, and to permit more advanced types of reasoning about spatial conflicts, preservation of specific feature characteristics, and local variations in geometry, content and enriched attribution. Rather than an exhaustive review of generalisation operators, the chapter devotes more attention to operators associated with network generalisation, which illustrates well the logic behind map generalisation developments. Three case studies demonstrate the application of operators to road thinning, to river network and braid pruning, and to hierarchical point elimination. The chapter closes with some summary comments and future directions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ai T, Liu Y, Chen J (2006) The hierarchical watershed partitioning and data simplification of river network. Prog Spat Data Handling Part 11:617–632. doi:10.1007/3-540-35589-8_39
Aslan S, Bildirici IO, Simav O, Cetinkaya B (2012) An incremental displacement approach applied to building objects in topographic mapping. In: 13th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Istanbul
Balboa JLG, Lopez FJA (2008) Generalization-oriented road line classification by means of an artificial neural network. Geoinformatica 12:289–312
Beard K (1991) Constraints on rule formation. In: Buttenfield BP, McMaster RB (eds) Map generalisation: making rules for knowledge representation. Longman Group, Harlow, pp 121–135
Benz SA, Weibel R (2013) Road network selection using an extended Stroke-Mesh combination algorithm. In: 16th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Dresden, Germany, 23–24 Aug 2013
Bereuter P, Weibel R, Burghardt D (2012) Content zooming and exploration for mobile maps. In: Proceedings of the 15th AGILE international conference on geographic information science, pp 74–80
Bereuter P, Weibel R (2013) Real-time generalisation of point data in mobile and web mapping using quadtrees. Cartogr Geogr Inf Sci 40(4):1–11
Bildirici IO, Aslan S, Simav O, Cobankaya ON (2011) A generic approach to building typification. In: 14th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Paris, 30 June–1 July
Bobzien M, Burghardt D, Petzold I, Neun M, Weibel R (2008) Multi-representation databases with explicitly modeled horizontal, vertical, and update relations. Cartography Geogr Inf Sci 35(1):3–16
Brewer CA, Stanislawski LV, Buttenfield BP, Raposo P, Sparks KA, Howard MA (2012) Multiscale design for the national map of the United States: road thinning for topographic mapping. In: AutoCarto 2012 Proceedings, Columbus, Ohio, 16–18 Sept 2012
Brewer CA, Stanislawski LV, Buttenfield BP, Sparks KA, McGilloway J, Howard MA (2013a) Automated thinning of road networks and road labels for multiscale design of the national map of the United States. Cartogr Geogr Inf Sci
Brewer CA, Guidero EM, Stanislawski LV, Buttenfield BP, Raposo P (2013b) Labeling through scale using hierarchies of thinned road networks for design of the national map of the United States. In: Proceedings 26th international cartographic conference, Dresden, Germany, Aug 25–30
Briat M-O, Monnot J-L, Punt EM (2011) Scalability of contextual generalisation processing using partitioning and parallelization. In: 14th ICA/ISPRS workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Paris, 30 June–1 July
Buttenfield BP, Mark DM (1991) Expert systems in cartographic design Chapter 7. In: Taylor DRF (ed) Geographic information systems. New York: Pergamon: pp. 129–150
Buttenfield BP, Stanislawski LV, Brewer CA (2011) Adapting generalisation tools to physiographic diversity for the United States national hydrography dataset. Cartography Geogr Inf Sci 38(3):289–301
Chaudhry O, Mackaness WA (2005) Rural and urban road network generalisation deriving 1:250,000 from OS mastermap. In: Proceedings of the 22nd international cartographic conference, A Coruña, Spain, 11–16 July
Chaudhry O, Mackaness WA (2008a) Partitioning to make manageable the generalisation of national spatial datasets. In: 11th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Montpellier, France, 20–21 June 2008
Chaudhry O, Mackaness WA (2008b) Automatic identification of urban settlement boundaries for multiple representation databases. Comput Environ Urban Syst 32(2):95–109
Chen J, Hu Y, Li Z, Zhao R, Meng L (2009) Selective omission of road features based on mesh density for automatic map generalisation. Int J Geogr Inf Sci 23(8):1013–1032
Christophe S, Ruas A (2002) Detecting building alignments for generalisation purposes, advances in spatial data handling. Springer, Berlin, pp 419–432
Esri (2011) ArcGIS desktop 10 help documentation: thin road network (cartography). Environ Syst Res Inst, 11 Sept 2011 http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//007000000014000000. Accessed 6 Feb 2013
Esri (2012) ArcGIS 10.1 help: cartographic partitions (environment setting). Environ Syst Res Ins, http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#/Welcome_to_the_ArcGIS_Help_Library/00qn0000001p000000/. Accessed 18 Feb 2013
Foerster TJ, Stoter J, Kobben B (2007) Towards a formal classification of generalisation operators. In: Proceedings of the 23rd international cartographic conference. Moscow, Russia
Fotheringham AS, Brunsdon C, Charlton M (2000) Quantitative geography: perspectives on spatial data analysis. Sage, London
Gülgen F, Gökgöz T (2008) Selection of roads for cartographic generalization. the international archives of the photogrammetry. Remote Sens Spat Inf Sci 37(B4):615–620
Gülgen F, Gökgöz T (2011) A block-based selection method for road network generalisation. Int J Digital Earth 4(2):133–153
Gutman N (2012) Continuous and adaptive cartographic generalization of river networks. Doctoral dissertation. School of Computer Science, University of Oklahoma
Heinzle F, Anders KH, Sester M (2005) Graph based approaches for recognition of patterns and implicit information in road networks. In: Proceedings of the 22nd international cartographic conference, A Coruna, Spain, 9–16 July
Heinzle F, Anders K-H, Sester M (2007) Automatic detection of patterns in road networks methods and evaluation. In: Proceedings of joint workshop visualization and exploration of geospatial data 26(4)
Horton RE (1945) Erosional development of streams and their drainage basins: hydrophysical approach to quantitative morphology. Geol Soc Am Bull 56(3):275–370
Jenny B, Jenny H, Hurni L (2011) Terrain generalisation with multi-scale pyramids constrained by curvature. Cartography Geogr Inf Sci 38(1):110–116
Jiang B, Claramunt C (2004) A structrual approach to the model generalisation of an urban street network. GeoInformatica 8(2):157–171
Jiang B, Liu X, Jia T (2013) Scaling of geographic space as a universal rule for map generalization. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 103(4):844–855
Kilpeläinen T (1997) Multiple representation and generalisation of geo-databases for topographic maps, Doctoral dissertation. Publications of the Finnish Geodetic Institute, Kirkonummi, (124)
Leonowicz AM, Jenny B, Hurni L (2010) Terrain sculptor: generalizing terrain models for relief shading. Cartographic Perspect 67:51–60
Li Z, Zhou Q (2012) Integration of linear and areal hierarchies for continuous multi-scale representation of road networks. Int J Geogr Info Sci 26(5):855–880
Long S, Shoberg T, Corns S, Carlo H, Ramachandran V (2012) Integrating geospatial data from the national map with supply chain networks to improve resiliency following large-scale urban disasters. American association of geographers national conference, New York
Mackaness WA, Ruas A, Sarjakoski LT (2007) Generalisation of geographic information: cartographic modelling and applications, Elsevier, Amsterdam pp 370
McMaster RB (1983) A quantitative analysis of mathematical measures in linear simplification. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography-Meteorology, University of Kansas
McMaster RB (1989) Numerical generalisation in cartography. In: McMaster, RB (ed) Monograph 40, numerical generalisaton in cartography. Cartographica 26(1):1–6
McMaster RB, Monmonier M (1989) A conceptual framework for quantitative and qualitative raster-mode generalisation. In: Proceedings of GIS/LIS’89, Orlando. American society for photogrammetry and remote sensing, Maryland, pp 390–403
McMaster RB and Shea KS (1992) Generalisation in digital cartography. In: Association of american geographers resource publications in college geography, Washington, DC, pp 134
Morrison JL (1974) A theoretical framework for cartographic generalisation with emphasis on the process of symbolization. Int Yearb Cartography 14:115–127
Neun M, Burghardt D, Weibel R (2008) Web service approaches for providing enriched data structures to generalisation. Int J Geogr Inf Sci 22(2):133–165
Nickerson BG, Freeman HR (1986) Development of a rule-based system for automatic map generalisation. In: Proceedings of the 2nd international symposium on spatial data handling, Seattle, Washington. International Geographical Union Commission on Geographical Data Sensing and Processing, Williamsville, NY, pp 537–556
Punt EM, Watkins D (2010) User-directed generalisation of roads and buildings for multi-scale cartography. In: 13th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Zurich, 12–13 Sept 2010
Raposo P, Brewer CA, Stanislawski LV (2013) Label and attribute-based topographic point thinning. In: 16th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Dresden, Germany, 23–24 Aug 2013
Ratajski L (1967) Phenomenes des points de generalisation. Int Yearb Cartography 7:143–151
Regnauld N, McMaster RB (2006) Creating a hydrographic network from its cartographic representation: a case study using Ordnance Survey Mastermap data. Int J Geogr Inf Sci 20(6):611–631
Regnauld N, McMaster RB (2007) A synoptic view of generalisation operators. In: Mackaness WA, Ruas A, Sarjakoski LT (eds) Generalisation of geographic information: cartographic modelling and applications, Elsevier Ltd, Amsterdam pp 37–66
Robinson AH, Sale RD (1969) Elements of cartography, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York
Roth RE, Brewer CA, Stryker MS (2011) A typology of operators for maintaining legible map designs at multiple scales. Cartographic Perspect 68:29–64
Ruas A (1995) Multiple paradigms for automated map generalisation: geometry, topology, hierarchical partitioning and local triangulation. In: Proceedings AutoCarto, Charlotte, USA, 12, pp 69–78
Ruas A (1999) Modele de generalisation de donnees geographiques a base de constraints et d’autonomie, These de doctorat. L’universite de Marne La Vallee, Paris
Ruas A, Duchêne C (2007) A prototype generalisation system based on the multi-agent system paradigm. In: Mackaness WA, Ruas A, Sarjakoski LT (eds) Generalisation of geographic information: cartographic modelling and applications, Elsevier Ltd, pp 269–284
Sarjakoski LT, (2007) Conceptual Models of Generalisation and Multiple Representation, In Mackaness WA, Ruas A, Sarjakoski LT (eds), Generalisation of Geographic Information: Cartographic Modelling and Applications, Elsevier Ltd, pp 11–35
Savino S, Rumor M, Zanon M, Lissandron I (2010) Data enrichment for road generalization through analysis of morphology in the CARGEN project. In: 13th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Zurich, Switzerland, 12–13 Sept 2010
Savino S, Rumor M, Canton F, Langiu G, Reineri M (2011a) Model generalisation of the hydrography network in the CARGEN project. In: Ruas A (eds) Advances in cartography and GIScience (1):439–457, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, Springer, Berlin
Savino S, Rumor M, Zanon M (2011b) Pattern recognition and typification of ditches. In: Ruas A (eds), Advances in cartography and GIscience, Vol 1. Springer, pp 425–437 ISBN 9783642191428
Schylberg L (1993) Computational methods for generalisation of cartographic data in a raster environment. Doctoral Thesis, Department of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Royal Institue of Technology Stockholm, Sweden, Photogrammetric Reports (60) TRITA-FMI Report, (1993:7)
Simley J, Doumbouya A (2012) National hydrography dataset—Linear Referencing. USGS Fact Sheet: 2012–3068
Stanislawski LV (2009) Feature pruning by upstream drainage area to support automated generalisation of the united states national hydrography dataset. Comput Environ Urban Syst 33:325–333
Stanislawski LV, Buttenfield BP (2011) A raster alternative for partitioning line densities to support automated cartographic generalisation. In: 25th International cartography conference, July 3–8, Paris
Stanislawski LV, Briat M, Punt E, Howard M, Brewer CA, Buttenfield BP (2012a) Density-stratified thinning of road networks to support automated generalisation for the na-tional map. In: 15th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Istanbul, Turkey, 13–14 Sept 2012
Stanislawski LV, Doumbouya AT, Miller-Corbett CD, Buttenfield BP, Arundel-Murin ST (2012b) Scaling stream densities for hydrologic generalisations. Seventh international conference on GIScience, Columbus, Ohio, 18–21 Sept 2012
Stanislawski LV, Savino S (2011) Pruning of hydrographic networks: a comparison of two approaches. In: 14th ICA/ISPRS workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Paris, France, 30 June–1 July 2011
Steiniger S, Burghardt D, Weibel R (2006) Recognition of island structures for map generalisation. In: International symposium on advances in geographic information systems, ACM-GIS 2006 pp 67–74
Steiniger S, Lange T, Burghardt D, Weibel R (2008) An approachfor the classification of urban building structures based on discriminant analysis techniques. Trans GIS 12(1):31–59
Steiniger S, Wiebel R (2007) Relations among map objects in cartographic generalisation. Cartography Geog Inf Sci 34(3):175–197
Stoter J, Baella B, Blok C, Burghardt D, Duchêne C, Pla M, Regnauld N, Touya G (2010) State-of-the-art of automated generalisation in commercial software. European spatial data research report, p 270 (2010)
Stofer S, Scheidegger C, Clerc P, Dietrich M, Frei M, Groner U, Jakob P, Keller C, Roth I, Vust M, Zimmermann E (2012) Nationales Daten- und Informationszentrum der Schweizer Flechten—SwissLichens. Datenbankauszug vom 25. September 2012 (SST_20120925). Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt WSL, Birmensdorf
Strahler AN (1952) Hypsometric (area-altitude) analysis of erosional topology. Geol Soc Am Bull 63(11):1117–1142
Sugarbaker LJ, Carswell WJ (2011) The national map: U.S. geological survey fact sheet 2011–3042. pp 4 http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2011/3042. Accessed 29 Jan 2013
Thomson RC, Brooks R (2002) Exploiting perceptual grouping for map analysis, understanding and generalization: the case of road and river networks. Graphics recognition algorithms and applications, Lecture notes in computer science 2390: 148–157
Thomson RC, Brooks R (2007) Generalisation of geographical networks. In: Mackaness WA, Ruas A, Sarjakoski LT (eds) Generalisation of geographic information: cartographic modelling and applications, Elsevier Ltd, Boston pp 255–267
Thomson RC, Richardson DE (1995) A graph theory approach to road network generalisation. In: Proceedings 17th international cartographic conference, Barcelona, Spain, 3–9 Sept 1995
Thompson RC, Richardson DE (1999) The ‘Good Continuity’ principle of perceptual organisation applied to the generalisation of road networks. In: Proceeding of the 19th international cartographic conference, Ottawa pp 1215–1225
Töpfer F, Pillewizer W (1966) The principles of selection. Cartographic J 3(1):10–16
Touya G (2007) River network selection based on structure and pattern recognition. In: Proceedings 23rd International cartographic conference, Moscow, Russia
Touya G (2010) A road network selection process based on data enrichment and structure detection. Trans GIS 14(5):595–614
Touya G, Duchêne C, Ruas A (2010) Collaborative generalization: formalization of generalization knowledge to orchestrate different cartographic generalization processes. GIScience 2010, Zurich, Switzerland, 14–17, Sept 2010
USGS (1985) Standards for 1:100,000-scale quadrangle maps. National mapping program technical instructions. U.S. Geological survey, Department of the Interior
USGS (2006) The best practices data model—The national map, March 1 2006, http://services.nationalmap.gov/bestpractices/model/acrodocs/Poster_BPTrans_03_01_2006.pdf. Accessed 5 Feb 2013
van Oosterom P (2005) Variable-scale topological data structures suitable for progressive data transfer: the GAP-face tree and GAP-edge forest. Cartography Geogr Inf Sci 32(4):331–346
van Oosterom P, Meijers M (2011) Towards a true vario-scale structure supporting smooth-zoom. 14th ICA/ISPRS workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Paris, 30 June–1 July
Verdin KL, Verdin JP (1999) A topological system for delineation and codification of the earth’s river basins. J Hydrol 218:1–12
Wallace RM, Tarboton DG,Watson DW, Schreuders KAT, Tesfa TK (2010) Parallel algorithms for processing hydrologic properties for digital terrain. GIScience, Zurich, 14–17, Sept 2010
Weibel R (1991) Amplified intelligence and rule-based systems. In: Buttenfield BP, McMaster RB (eds) Map generalisation: making rules for knowledge generation. Longman, London
Weibel R (1992) Models and experiments for adaptive computer assisted terrain generalization. Cartography Geogr Inf Syst 19(3):133–153
Weibel R, Burghardt D (2008) Generalisation on-the-fly. In: Shekhar S, Xiong H (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, New York, pp 339–344
Weiss R, Weibel R (2013) Road network selection for small-scale maps using an improved centrality approach. In: 16th ICA workshop on generalisation and multiple representation, Dresden, Germany, 23–24 Aug 2013
Werder S, Kieler B, Sester M (2010) Semi-automatic interpretation of buildings and settlement areas in user-generated spatial data. In: Proceedings of the 18th SIGSPATIAL international conference on advances in geographic information systems, pp 330–339. doi: 10.1145/1869790.1869836
Wu H, Kimball JS, Li H, Huang M, Leung LR, Adler RF (2012) A new global river network database for macroscale hydrologic modeling. Water resources research, vol. 48, W09701, pp 5 doi:10.1029/2012WR012313
Yager DB, Hofstra AH, Granitto M (2012) Analyzing legacy U.S. geological survey geochemical databases using GIS—Applications for a national mineral resource assessment: U.S. Geological survey techniques and methods 11–C5, pp 28
Zhang X, Ai T, Stoter J (2010) Characterization and detection of building patterns in cartographic data: two algorithms. The international archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences 38(II):261–266
Zhou Q, Li Z (2012) A comparative study of various strategies to concatenate road segments into strokes for map generalization. Int J Geogr Inf Sci 26(4):691–715
Acknowledgments
Work for this chapter was funded by several federal agencies in several countries. The work of Dr. Brewer is funded by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (USGS-CEGIS) grant #06HQAG0131. The work of Dr. Buttenfield is supported by USGS-CEGIS grant #04121HS029. The research reported in the third Case study represents part of the PhD project of Pia Bereuter, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation through project GenW2 + (SNF no. 200020-138109). Particular thanks go to Silvia Stofer of the National Data and Information Center for Swiss lichens and all the contributors for collecting and providing the data of the SwissLichens dataset.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stanislawski, L.V., Buttenfield, B.P., Bereuter, P., Savino, S., Brewer, C.A. (2014). Generalisation Operators. In: Burghardt, D., Duchêne, C., Mackaness, W. (eds) Abstracting Geographic Information in a Data Rich World. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00203-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00203-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00202-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-00203-3
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)