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Terrain Generalisation

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Abstracting Geographic Information in a Data Rich World

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography ((ICA))

Abstract

This chapter reviews recent development in terrain generalisation. We focus on issues of aesthetics and legibility in the application of cartographic generalisation. Generalisation methods are relevant to traditional terrain representations (spot heights, contours, hypsometric colours, shaded relief) and to grid and triangulated surface generalisation. First we consider issues related to relief representation at different scales. As generalisation requires knowledge about the terrain morphology, several approaches focusing on the classification of terrain features according to morphometric or topological criteria have been developed. Cartographic generalisation methods are reviewed with consideration given to conflicts between terrain representations and other object type data on the map. In the second part of this chapter, three case studies illustrating previous developments are presented. First, a generalisation method for hypsometric map production is described where important valleys and mountain ridges are accentuated to improve their representation. Second, a method selecting features represented by isobaths and answering specific constraints of nautical charts is presented. The third case study is a generalisation method which models the relationship between terrain and other objects such as buildings and rivers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics Department, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Eric Guilbert

  2. Digital Earth and Reference Data unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy

    Julien Gaffuri

  3. Laboratoire COGIT, IGN, Saint-Mandé, France

    Julien Gaffuri

  4. College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA

    Bernhard Jenny

Authors
  1. Eric Guilbert
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  2. Julien Gaffuri
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  3. Bernhard Jenny
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric Guilbert .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, Institute of Cartography, Dresden, Germany

    Dirk Burghardt

  2. IGN COGIT laboratory, Saint-Mande, France

    Cécile Duchêne

  3. Geographical Information Science, School of GeoSciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    William Mackaness

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Guilbert, E., Gaffuri, J., Jenny, B. (2014). Terrain Generalisation. 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_8

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