General Principles for Automated Generation of Schematic Network Maps

Usually, a street map contains various types of detailed information and appears to be crowded. As a result, to many users, a street map looks complicated and is not easy to read and follow. In fact, to a certain degree, too much detail makes the map uninformative and noisy. The London tube map, called a schematic or topological map in some literature, has often been cited as an excellent example of a simplified map. Algorithms have been developed by researchers to automate the generation of schematic maps for road networks. However, it is found that there is still a lack of defined general principles and here four general principles have been formulated for schematisation – the Principle of the Preservation of the Topological Relationship; the Principle of the Preservation of the Main Structure of the Line Network; the Principle of Relativity in Position; and the Principle of Relativity in Length. The first two are the principles of preservation: these two should never be violated. The last two are principles of relativity: it is very desirable to keep these two intact unless there is an absolute need to violate them.