A simple positional accuracy measure for linear features

Abstract In this paper we propose a simple technique for assessing the positional accuracy of digitized linear features. The approach relies on a comparison with a representation of higher accuracy, and estimates the percentage of the total length of the low accuracy representation that is within a specified distance of the high accuracy representation. The approach deals successfully with three deficiencies of other methods: it is statistically based; is relatively insensitive to extreme outliers; and does not require matching of points between representations. It can be implemented using standard functions and a standard scripting language in any raster or vector GIS. We present the results of a test using data from the Digital Chart of the World.