Rules and constraints for 3D generalization of urban area

In every map, irrespective of its theme, objects are represented at a reduced scale. Map contents do not decrease proportionally to the reduction of the map size. Usually an increasing density of the map contents occurs at smaller scales. That is where the generalization plays an important role. Generalization is the process of creating a legible map at a given scale from a more detailed geographical dataset. It is done in such a manner that the character or essence of the original features is retained at successively smaller scales. Though the purposes and benefits of generalization are manifold it is indeed a complex decision-making process which must be intelligently steered by goals and rules from the geographical application domain such that the generalized representation conveys knowledge consistent with the reality. In recent past, lot of work has been done in 2D generalization (Beard, 1991; Weibel, 1995; Bealla, 1995; Ruas and Plazanet, 1996; Sarjakoski and Kilpeläinen, 1999) which defines a set of operations to be performed with the goal to achieve the similar results to those from manual generalization. But 3D generalization is altogether perceived differently. A given 3D urban area mostly consists of roads and buildings. These buildings are of different styles and features. Further the city area may be viewed from different angles and at different heights. So generalization in general and aggregation in particular must deal with all these issues. In this paper, an effort has been made to address these issues.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Inst. of Photogrammetry and Cartography, Technical University of Munich, München, Germany

   Jagdish Lal & Liqiu Meng

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