An international research survey: Cartographic generalisation practices at mapping agencies
This paper aims to report on the process of acquiring knowledge by undertaking a Cartographic Generalisation Survey. From November 2005 to May 2006, a survey of cartographic generalisation practices was conducted at several National Mapping Agencies (NMAs), state mapping agencies and a number of software vendors, in order to capture the cartographers' knowledge about the principles of cartographic generalisation and their experience with existing generalisation software. The survey was designed to collect experts' recommendations in relation to new technologies and the future generalisation research that could be undertaken by universities and the spatial information industry. The survey results are being utilised to build a knowledge-based expert system on feature generalisation. Cartographers' feedback was provided in the form of broad qualitative statements and was analysed to obtain the most pertinent comments. Statistical responses were assessed in quantitative terms. This paper provides key findings from the analysis of the survey results. The outcome of this research is the development of a conceptual framework to generalise spatial databases and a practical realisation of the framework in order to deliver coherent capabilities and automate the generalisation of features as much as possible for "derivative mapping" applications.