A Quantitative Measurement Approach for Metric Information of Maps Based on Spatial Cognition

Spatial cognition is a cognitive process of spatial environment. As an important tool of recording and presenting geographic information, map is the main medium for spatial cognition result. This paper evaluates the existing measurement approaches for map information, and the measurement of metric information proposed by Li and Huang is especially emphasized, for it considers the spatial distribution and relationships of map features. Because the map is a complex cognitive system, human cognition should be considered here. However these measures have neglected the cognitive concepts ´type´ and ´level´ of map features, which are valuable for human´s spatial cognition. As a result, the authors employed the weighted Voronoi diagram to propose a new quantitative measure for metric information. An experimental evaluation is also conducted. Results show that metric information considering cognitive multi-type and multi-level is closer to the spatial environment and human´s spatial cognition.