A Method for Generating Variable-Scale Maps for Small Displays

• Main Authors: Rong Zhao, Tinghua Ai, Chen Wen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
• Subjects: variable-scale map; Focus+Glue+Context; interactive visualization; hierarchical data structure
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/4/250

With the rapid development of the internet and information technology, visualization techniques for mobile and interactive web maps have developed different requirements. Small screens make it difficult to simultaneously present information details and the surrounding context. Aiming at this problem, this paper proposes a novel variable-scale method that can allow users to properly specify the size, shape, and number of the focus area(s). Our method first establishes a hierarchical data structure for representing geographic data and then the client-side can request and represent the information according to only the operational command input by users. Experimental results show that this method can realize the variable-scale representation of real geographic data on a single screen. It can effectively solve the contradiction between a small-screen display and a large quantity of information.