Automatic map digitising: problems and solution

Discusses problems in automatic map digitising. The authors´ experience and a PC-based cartographical system to digitise Russian and Belarussian national maps are presented. Memory restrictions made us develop special technologies and techniques to digitise large-size map drawings. The combination of manual digitising and labelling with automatic vectorisation and recognition, and interactive editing produced satisfactory time characteristics for digitising complex maps. To process scanned maps automatically with restricted computer memory, an effective pipeline oriented scheme and new techniques have been developed. A new process called object labelling has been introduced to speed up the interpretation process. A structure for the output database has been suggested to store all the required information about a map. The suggested technology allows a reduction in digitising time by more than a factor two in comparison with the existing manual map digitising methods. The system can be used to input and vectorise other different types of 2D line drawings.<>