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Technical Paper

Map Generalization in GIS: Practical Solutions with Workstation ArcInfo Software


Map generalization has become an indispensable component of today’s GIS systems. Whatever the task, from compiling data in different sources into a master database to composing an output from it for data compression, analysis, or representation, generalization is most likely involved. The basic concepts and the state of the art of computer-assisted generalization were reviewed in a previous paper (ESRI). The present paper further explains the nature of map generalization in GIS and presents our

Map generalization has become an indispensable component of today’s GIS systems. Whatever the task, from compiling data in different sources into a master database to composing an output from it for data compression, analysis, or representation, generalization is most likely involved. The basic concepts and the state of the art of computer-assisted generalization were reviewed in a previous paper (ESRI). The present paper further explains the nature of map generalization in GIS and presents our newly developed generalization functions and sample procedures derived for specific generalization tasks in Workstation ArcInfo software.

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