AUTOMATED MAP GENERALISATION USING COMMUNICATING AGENTS
Cécile Duchêne · 2003
This research is concerned with automating the generalisation of topographic databases, in order to produce topographic maps. We use an agent-oriented approach: the geographic features (roads, rivers, buildings etc.) are modelled as autonomous agents, as previously undertaken within the European AGENT project (1). To handle rural areas, our approach consists of letting these agents interact so that each of them either finds a new location and geometric representation or eliminates itself, so that the whole fits within the generalisation specifications. For this, our agents are provided with capacities to perceive their spatial environment, as well as an ability to communicate with surrounding agents. This approach has been implemented and tested on real geographical data. In this paper we describe the system. Some encouraging results are presented and discussed.