Spatial structure-preserving and conflict-avoiding methods for point settlement selection

Abstract Point settlement selection is one of the critical tasks in map generalization, which should consider spatial distribution, spatial conflict, proximity to objects, and other factors. By analyzing the current research, spatial structure-preserving and conflict-avoiding methods are proposed in this article for point settlement selection. On the one hand, in view of the shortcomings of the Voronoi diagram in measuring settlement density and spatial distribution, a spatial conflict-avoiding strategy is proposed, which utilizes the minimum distance between adjacent settlements to weight the Voronoi diagram area to avoid local conflicts. On the other hand, in order to solve the problem of excessive temporary solidification of adjacent settlements, an adaptive temporary solidification strategy considering local spatial characteristics is proposed, with an improved novel distance-constrained Voronoi diagram model suggested and employed. Comparative experiments and related quantitative analysis on the National Land Survey of Finland Topographic Database confirm that the above methods have good effect. The conflict-avoiding strategy can effectively prioritize map readability and legibility, while the adaptive temporary solidification method can better deal with the boundary effect of settlement groups.