An improved map-symbol model to facilitate sharing of heterogeneous qualitative map symbols

Abstract

Symbol sharing that is facilitated by current technologies is hampered by the incompatibility of current map-symbol models with existing heterogeneous map-symbol resources. After a comparative analysis of the terminology and symbol construction strategies in existing map-symbol models, an improved model is presented to facilitate symbol sharing. The model combines current symbol description methods to enable broad compatibility with heterogeneous mapping/geographic information systems (GISs). Extensional map-symbol construction strategies have also been proposed to support various symbols with different levels of graphic complexity. Topographic, traffic, and OpenStreetMap symbol resources are used to validate the interoperability and compatibility of this model. Its compatibility was validated with a case study of ArcGIS, and its interoperation was validated with a case study of ArcGIS, AutoCAD, and CorelDraw. The results indicate that the map-symbol model is flexible for use with different map-symbol variants and compatible with existing description methods and that it can be used as a common model for sharing heterogeneous map-symbol resources.