A coastline generalization method that considers buffer consistency.

Abstract

Coastlines are the boundary between the ocean and land and are an important line feature in spatial data. Coastlines must be adapted via map generalization when they are stored in multi-scale spatial databases. This article presents a new method of coastline generalization that considers the buffer consistency from the original coastline to the generalized coastlines. This method uses the geographical distance field to identify the feature points and bends that influence the buffer consistency from the original coastline to the generalized coastline, and the process is also used to simplify the bends and maintain the concave and convex characteristics in the generalization. This method is compared to the bend-simplification method, and the results indicate that the proposed method can preserve the shape characteristics of coastlines. Moreover, the seaward buffer boundaries from the original coastline to the generalized coastline are consistent when the distance is greater than the tolerance of the coastline generalization.