AUTOMATED TEXTURE ANALYSIS ON LANDSCAPE MAPS

A procedure for formalizing and classifying the textures created by various geographic features on maps is outlined with the objective of providing a mathematical basis for their analysis by computer. The topological digital modeling of “geotextures” is based on the identification of mathematical sets (matrices) describing the content (either nominally or ordinally scaled) and distribution (either discrete or continuous) of elements comprising a particular texture. Several examples of such models are presented in detail for both discrete and continuous areal data and are compared in terms of their space requirements in the random access memory of a computer. Translated from: Geografiyo i prirodnyye resursy, 1986, No. 4, pp. 121-129.