Improving Automated Generalisation for On-Demand Web Mapping by Multiscale Databases

This paper describes the generation of maps on-demand with the use of a multiscale database. It is based on an analysis of the requirements of on-demand mapping and points out the different requests and limits of on-demand cartography. The central idea is to combine two commonly used approaches in cartography: On the one hand the use of a multi-scale database which includes two or more levels of details, on the other hand the use of cartographic generalisation methods. For selected object classes the paper discusses and evaluates design and implementation options for the multi-scale database and the generalisation of parts of the framework. The importance lies in the optimal combination of these two methods – which tasks must be solved by the MSDB and which through the generalisation process.