Automatic map derivation from a single database with the 1Spatial Management Suite
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Regnauld, N.; 2Duré, P.
11SPATIAL Email: nicolas.regnauld@1spatial.com
21SPATIAL Email: paul.dure@1spatial.com
Abstract
National Mapping and Cadastre Authorities (NMCA’s) are constantly looking for ways to increase efficiency in their operations, whether it be on data collection, data management, or derivation of products. 1Spatial provides a suite of products, the 1Spatial Management Suite (1SMS), that can support NMCA’s in the automation of all these steps, from initial planning of capture jobs right through to publishing of digital and cartographic products. This paper focuses on the 1Spatial software products that specifically support the product derivation process. 1Generalise is the product by 1Spatial that delivers automated generalisation capabilities to organisations who manage large databases of high resolution spatial data and need to derive maps at smaller scales or generate lower resolution datasets. 1Generalise is built on a long history of research and innovation in generalisation technology at 1Spatial. Initially, the aim was to provide a tool box that would allow organisations to build the first advanced production systems using automatic generalisation. This aim was successfully achieved and these technologies are in use today in production systems at Ordnance Survey Great Britain, IGN France, IGN Belgium, GST Denmark and ADV Germany. Now with 1Generalise, we are bringing greatly enhanced speed, flexibility and efficiency to the process of building such production systems. The novel 1Generalise User Interface guides the user through the process of applying standard generalisation Flowlines to their data and tuning exposed parameters to refine the output map or dataset. These tuneable standard Flowlines let the user see results within a few hours of getting started. Where advanced configuration is required, the 1Generalise Flowline Designer interface enables users to adapt these standard Flowlines to their specific needs or even to create some entirely new Flowlines. This is done by selecting the powerful generalisation tools to be applied to various geographic components and sequencing the processing order to achieve the desired result. With this approach the user does not need to embark on costly new developments as the integrated rule editor in 1Generalise gives the user access to the rules logic that dictates what tools to use in what context. 1Generalise is typically used to produce what is commonly called a Digital Cartographic Model (DCM), a dataset which has been generalised so it is ready to be published as a product styled for a specific scale, with a defined symbology. Once the DCM has been generated 1Spatial customers can apply the styles and publish the products using the powerful and flexible capabilities of 1Publish. 1Publish is the next generation of the former Mercator product, well known and respected in the domain for its ability to produce high quality cartographic products, providing full control to the user over the styling, and providing workflow tools to automate the production of atlases or map series. All the existing capabilities of Mercator are preserved in 1Publish, and these have been enhanced through additional functionality and interfaces that have been added to support integration with the rest of the 1SMS, and in particular to expose 1Publish functionality through Web service interfaces so that it can be accessed by an external workflow in an automated environment. While 1Generalise and 1Publish can be used as standalone products, they have been designed to be easily integrated as components of a system that can derive cartographic products from a spatial database, and automatically update these products when changes occur in the source data. This is achieved by combining them with other components of 1SMS, such as 1Exchange to extract data from the database, 1Transact to update the product database, 1Validate to ensure the quality of the derived data, and 1Workflow to automate the flow between all these components and deliver an entirely automated solution. This highly agile approach provides users of 1Generalise and 1Publish with the ability to deliver much more from their existing data, to reduce the time to market for new products, and to maximise the currency of all their products while reducing the associated design, deployment and production costs. Currently in use at Ordnance Survey Great Britain, 1Generalise is 1Spatial’s answer to automated generalisation. Seamless integration with 1Publish and the other components of the 1Spatial Management Suite enables fully automated propagation of recorded change from initial data capture right through to published multi-resolution data and multi-scale map products.
Keywords
automatic generalisation; change only update; Map styling