학술논문

Exploring Curved Schematization
Document Type
Conference
Source
2014 IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium Visualization Symposium (PacificVis), 2014 IEEE Pacific. :1-8 Mar, 2014
Subject
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Computing and Processing
General Topics for Engineers
Robotics and Control Systems
Signal Processing and Analysis
Shape
Complexity theory
Visualization
Rendering (computer graphics)
Smoothing methods
Clocks
Topology
Geographic Information Systems
Computational Geometry and Object Modeling
Language
ISSN
2165-8765
2165-8773
Abstract
Hand-drawn schematized maps traditionally make extensive use of curves. However, there are few automated approaches for curved schematization most previous work focuses on straight lines. We present a new algorithm for area-preserving curved schematization of geographic outlines. Our algorithm converts a simple polygon into a schematic crossing-free representation using circular arcs. We use two basic operations to iteratively replace consecutive arcs until the desired complexity is reached. Our results are not restricted to arcs ending at input vertices. The method can be steered towards different degrees of 'curviness': we can encourage or discourage the use of arcs with a large central angle via a single parameter. Our method creates visually pleasing results even for very low output complexities. We conducted an online user study investigating the effectiveness of the curved schematizations compared to straight-line schematizations of equivalent complexity. While the visual complexity of the curved shapes was judged higher than those using straight lines, users generally preferred curved schematizations. We observed that curves significantly improved the ability of users to match schematized shapes of moderate complexity to their unschematized equivalents.