Adaptive generation of variable-scale network maps for small displays based on line density distribution

This paper presents an integrated strategy for adaptive generation of variable-scale network maps for different small displays. It is based on the line density distribution and comprised of three steps, i.e. (a) to estimate the line density by a grid-based method, (b) to adaptively generate variable-scale maps based on density distribution for given display sizes and (c) to improve the map readability by map generalization. The proposed strategy has been tested by using two real-life network datasets, with a statistical analysis and a perceptual evaluation. Experimental results show that this strategy is able to better exploit the limited map space so as to significantly improve map clarity and readability and at the same time to preserve map recognition ability compared to its original shape.