Handling Graphic Conflicts between Cartographic Features: Exemplifying Geo-linear Features(Road, River and Boundary)

According to the requirements of map quality by cartographic specifications, the current computer cartographic methodology and technology could not inevitably avoid manually intervening in resolving a large amount of graphic conflicts after symbolization. It results from the differences between Digital Landscape Models and Digital Cartographic Models and has been a bottleneck for fast map-making. Through an investigation into the appearance of cartographic conflicts and cartographic specifications, this article presents a set of basic operations to implement the cartographic strategy “processing before symbolizing” for handling graphic conflicts specifically on two forms of conflicts: graphic overlap and graphic connection. That strategy translates handling graphic conflicts caused by symbolization of geographic features into processing the features-selves so that a lot of thereby conflicts are removed. Applications of those basic operations in resolving cartographic conflicts are outlined by exemplifying some typical conflicts caused by the main topographic features: Road, River system and Boundary. Two experiments on producing topographic maps verify the applicability of the presented operations as well as the paradigm in this study in improving efficiency of map-making