Clutter and Map Legibility in Automated Cartography: A Research Agenda

The clutter effect occurs when there is an excessive amount of information in a map or when this information is disorganized. Measurement of clutter is essential to improve the quality of outputs produced using automated cartographic systems. This paper reviews some existing methods for measuring clutter from different research communities, highlighting the lack of suitable methods for use in automated map design. Three use cases are presented to show what kind of clutter measures are needed to go further with the automation of map design, particularly in generalization, in symbol/style specification, and in heterogeneous data integration and visualization. One measure cannot capture all the aspects of clutter, and combination of clutter measures at each step of the whole map design process should be investigated for automated cartography. A research agenda for clutter assessment regarding some specific cartographic processes is provided.