Managing And Maintaining Cartographic Data: Contemporary Approaches And New Directions

Cost effective techniques for updating cartographic databases for map publication and revision are of major importance to the spatial information industry. Traditionally, digital map publishing systems maintain multiple databases in order to produce a variety of map themes at various scales. This is an expensive solution. Ideally, derived maps should be automatically updated in parallel to the primary data source. This paper will review contemporary approaches to spatial data management and identify major issues in the implementation of automated map revision. It will also introduce research into realtime updating of thematic maps.