Quantitative relations between spatial similarity degree and map scale change of individual linear objects in multi-scale map spaces

Quantitative relations between spatial similarity degree and map scale change in multi-scale map spaces play important roles in map generalization and construction of spatial data infrastructure. Nevertheless, no achievements have been made regarding this issue. To fill the gap, this paper firstly proposes a model for calculating spatial similarity degrees between an individual linear object at one scale and its generalized counterpart at the other scale. Then psychological experiments are designed to validate the new model, taking four different individual linear objects at five different scales as test samples. The experiments have shown that spatial similarity degrees calculated by the new model can be accepted by a majority of the subjects. After this, it constructs a formula that can calculate spatial similarity degree using map scale change (and vice versa) for individual linear objects in multi-scale map spaces by the curve fitting method using the point data from the psychological experiments. Both the formula and the model can calculate quantitative relations between spatial similarity degree and map scale change of individual linear objects in multi-scale map spaces, which facilitates automation of map generalization algorithms for linear features.