Junction modeling in vehicle navigation maps and multiple representations

Generalization is certainly one of the most important current issues in cartography, with particular emphasis being placed on its automation. This paper considers the automation of generalization applied to road networks primarily urban roads. In this context car navigation is considered as main subject. As Timpf et al. (1992) stated car navigation require data at a wide range of scales and at different levels of abstraction so a case study on map design for car navigation is done in this work Navigation Key problem areas are parts of the network where a topological change occurs based on scale. For example, single or multiple lane representation of the roads and junctions can cause many problems to both the navigating user and the cartographer who designs the map. So these different representations of the roads are examined in this study. Each possible representation of the highways and its junctions is considered as different representational level in the scope of multiple representational databases (MRDB). Fundamentals of the MRDB are developed for the urban road data, where the significant transformations are identified and tracked. Generalization tools that can be used for obtaining multi-scale representations from the base database are defined in this paper.