Graphic Map Load Measuring Tool – development and verification

ABSTRACT Map load is a map property quantifying the amount of map content in cartographic products. Since the 1960s, various approaches have been examined to determine map-load value to assume the map complexity level. However, none of these approaches has become commonly used to evaluate the map-load level neither during the map-design process nor for maps’ comparison. This paper aims to present an easy-to-use and freely available tool GMLMT (Graphic Map Load Measuring Tool) developed at the Department of Geoinformatics, Palacký University Olomouc. GMLMT applies a metric averaging of the amount of visible structures in a map using an edge-detection approach to measure graphic map load of raster representations of maps. The tool is suitable for a large scope of various map styles and visualisation methods and also provides a visualisation of map-load distribution across the evaluated map layout. This paper describes the process of designing the tool and its verification on both sample map sections presenting various aspects of map complexity and real maps examined in previous research through a user-perceived map load experiment.