A progressive method for the collapse of river representation considering geographical characteristics. Issue 12 (1st December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shen, Yilang; Ai, Tinghua; Li, Jingzhong; Huang, Lina; Li, Wende
• Is Part Of: International journal of digital earth. Volume 13:Issue 12(2020)
• Page Start: 1366
• Page End: 1390
• Publication Date: 2020-12-01
• Subjects: Collapse -- dual-line rivers -- skeleton line -- map generalization; Geographic information systems -- Periodicals; Sustainable development -- Information technology -- Periodicals; Social planning -- Information technology -- Periodicals; 910.285
• DOI: 10.1080/17538947.2020.1715495
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1753-8947

Abstract

ABSTRACT: During map generalization, the collapse of geometry, which is also called geometric dimension reduction, is a basic generalization operation. When the map scale decreases, rivers with long, shallow polygonal shapes, usually require their dual-line representation to be collapsed to a single line. This study presents a new algorithm called superpixel river collapse (SURC) to convert dual-line rivers to single-line rivers based on raster data. In this method, dual-line rivers are first segmented at different levels of detail using a superpixel method called simple linear iterative clustering. Then, by connecting the edge midpoints and centre of mass of each superpixel, single-line rivers are preliminarily generated from dual-line rivers. Finally, an interpolation algorithm called polynomial approximation with an exponential kernel is applied to maintain the uniform distribution of the feature points of single-line rivers at different levels of detail (LOD). The presented method can progressively collapse the river during scale transformation to support the LOD representation in a highly sensitive way. The results show that compared with three typical thinning algorithms, the SURC method can generate smooth single-line rivers from dual-line rivers considering different river widths while effectively avoiding burrs and fractured intersections.