A Hierarchical Approach to Measuring the Information Content of the Contours in a Map

• Main Authors: LIU Huimin, FAN Zide, DENG Min, XU Zhen
• Format: Article
• Language: zho
• Published: Surveying and Mapping Press 2016-02-01
• Series: Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica
• Subjects: contour line; map; hierarchy; information content
• Online Access: http://xb.sinomaps.com:8081/Jwk_chxb/CN/abstract/abstract5197.shtml

Taking a typical map,contour map as example,a methodology is developed for measuring the information content of the contours in a map in a hierarchy.Existing methods of measuring the information content of a map are first summarized,which are almost based on Shannon information theory.Then the sources of contour map information and its nature is discovered.It is found that the information of a contour map is able to be described into three levels,namely,element level,neighborhood level and global level.At the element level,it means the information of a contour line;at the neighborhood level,it refers to the information of basic geomorphic unit;and at the global level,the distribution information of whole geomorphology in a contour map is indicated.Moreover,all levels of information are measured from the nature of information source,i.e.variability and diversity.Finally,some practical examples are provided to illustrate the proposed methods.