June 17, 2009

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Publications on Computational Cartography :


BibTeX references.



Map Generalization by Skeleton Retraction

Christopher M. Gold and David Thibault
Proc. of the 20th International Cartographic Conference (ICC)
pp. 2072-2081, Beijing, China, August 2001.



Terrain Reconstruction from Contours by Skeleton Generation

David Thibault and Christopher M. Gold
GeoInformatica, Vol. 4 (4), pp. 349-373, December 2000.

Abstract

Generating terrain models from contour input is still an important process. Most methods have been unsatisfactory, as they either do not preserve the form of minor ridges and valleys, or else they are poor at modeling slopes. A method is described here, based on curve extraction and generalization techniques, that is guaranteed to preserve the topological relationships between curve segments. The skeleton, or Medial Axis Transform, can be extracted from the Voronoi diagram of a well-sampled contour map and used to extract additional points that eliminate cases of “flat triangles” in a triangulation. Elevation estimates may be made at these points. Based on this approach it is possible to make reasonable estimates of slopes for terrain models, and to extract meaningful intermediate points for triangulated irregular networks (TINs).


Primal/Dual Spatial Relationships and Applications

Christopher M. Gold
9th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling (SDH)
Vol. 4a, pp. 15-27, August 2000, Beijing, China.

Abstract

It is well known that extraction of the skeleton of a polygon from its outline may aid in the perception or classification of its form. It has also been suggested that the ‘exoskeleton’ may be used to express the relationships between objects in space. A new algorithm has been developed that extracts both the boundary and the skeleton of the spatial representation of an object in one easy step, based on local properties of the Delaunay/Voronoi diagram, without requiring additional information, such as point order or polygon labelling. This displays and preserves the fundamental relationships between the boundary and the skeleton that helps considerably in many cartographic problems. Illustrations include contour map input and terrain visualization; watershed and flow estimation from river network input, and drainage network estimation from basin boundaries; topological reconstruction from scanned map input, and text recognition and placement in cadastral maps. The concept of preservation of the ‘form’ of the skeleton suggests methods for map generalization without significant loss of meaning. Spatial uncertainty may also be addressed in terms of the boundary sampling requirements and permissible locational error without loss of the ability to interpret the basic form, spatial relationships and meaning of the map.

Keywords: Voronoi diagram; Topology; Boundary detection; Crust; Skeleton.




Medial-Axis-Based Cartograms

Daniel A. Keim, Christian Panse and Stephen C. North
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
Vol. 25, no. 3, pp.60-68, May/June 2005.

Abstract

Cartograms are a well-known technique for showing geography-related statistical information, such as demographic and epidemiological data. The idea is to distort a map by resizing its regions according to a statistical parameter, but in a way that keeps the map recognizable. This article describes a method of continuous cartogram generation, which strictly retains the input map's topology. It presents an algorithm that makes cartograms by iterative relocation of the map's vertices, guided by a modified medial axes transformation. Application experiments show that the proposed algorithm can make high-quality cartograms in interactive time, even for large maps. Additional examples help to demonstrate its potential.

Keywords: cartogram, contiguous cartograms, mesh transformation, drawing algorithm, information visualization, geovisualization, medial axes transformation, cartodraw.



Towards the Automation of Road Extraction Processes

F. Leymarie (2), N. Boichis (2),  S. Airault (1) and O. Jamet (1)
SPIE European Symposium on Satellite and Remote Sensing III*
vol. SPIE-2960, pp.84-95, Taormina, Sicily, Sept. 1996.

A joint ¹IGNSyseca project

Abstract

Syseca and IGN are working on various steps in the ongoing march from digital photogrammetry to the semi-automation and ultimately the full automation of data manipulation, i.e., capture and analysis. The immediate goals are to reduce the production costs and the data availability delays. Within this context, we have tackle the distinctive problem of 'automated road network extraction.' The methodology adopted is to first study semi-automatic solutions which probably increase the global efficiency of human operators in topographic data capture; in a second step, automatic solutions are designed based upon the gained experience. We report on different (semi-)automatic solutions for the road following algorithm. One key aspect of our method is to have the stages of 'detection' and 'geometric recovery' cooperate together while remaining distinct. 'Detection' is based on a local (texture) analysis of the image, while 'geometric recovery' is concerned with the extraction of 'road objects' for both monocular and stereo information. 'Detection' is a low-level visual process, 'reasoning' directly at the level of image intensities, while the mid-level visual process, 'geometric recovery', uses contextual knowledge about roads, both generic, e.g. parallelism of borders, and specific, e.g. using previously extracted road segments and disparities. We then pursue our 'march' by reporting on steps we are exploring toward full automation. We have in particular made attempts at tackling the automation of the initialization step to start searching in a valid direction.


* Conference on Remote Sensing for Geography, Geology, Land Planning, and Cultural Heritage, organised (and proceedings edited) by:
Daniel Arroyo-Bishop; Roberto Carla; Joan B. Lurie; Carlo M. Marino; A. Panunzi; James J. Pearson; Eugenio Zilioli.
DOI: 10.1117/12.262454





From Manual to Automatic Stereoplotting: Evaluation of Different Road Network Capture Processes

S. Airault, O. Jamet and F. Leymarie
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing,
Vol. 31(3), ISPRS, pp. 14-18, 1996.



Medial Axis Generalization of River Networks

Michael McAllister and Jack Snoeyink
CaGIS, Vol. 27, No. 2, April 2000.
Journal of the Cartography and Geographical Information Society

Abstract

We examine some benefits of using the medial axis as a centerline for rivers and lakes.  One benefit, automatic centerline generation, has been used for many years.  We show that additional benefits can be derived from the geometric relationships between the medial axis and the riverbanks or lakeshores.  These include area estimates, association of centerline analysis to banks, and definition of opposite for riverbanks.  We also report on our experience at approximating the medial axis with a Voronoi diagram of point sites.



The Computational Geometry of Hydrology Data in Geographic Information Systems

Michael McAllister
Ph.D. thesis, January 2000.



Extracting Consistent Watersheds from Digital River and Elevation Data

Michael McAllister and Jack Snoeyink
ASPRS Annual Conference, pp. 121--131, Portland, OR, USA, May 1999.




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