The Removal of Spatial Conflicts in Line Generalization

Automated line reduction of digitally encoded geographic lines may produce a topologically distorted view of the line morphology. Such distortions appear in the form of self-crossings, closing peninsulas, and spikes. Geometric procedures for the removal of point-to-point and point-to-line collisions are described. The procedures intervene after reduction, hence they are independent from the methods being used. The robustness of the solutions is tested both in the removal of collisions between spatially conflicting elements and in the broader context of neighborhoods, where displacements are propagated throughout the region surrounding the colliding elements. This is an important step between simple line reduction and automated generalization.