DEVELOPMENT OF A GRAPHIC LOGIC CHECK TOOL FOR SVG MAPS

由W3C（万维网联盟）开发的SVG（可伸缩矢量图形）有望成为基于xml的图形描述的新标准。在不久的将来，Internet上的许多地图将被格式化为SVG。与主要用作Web图形的图像格式的地图相比，svg格式的地图由于其内部设计结构而相对容易被机器理解。本文介绍了我们提出的用于使用制图知识检查SVG地图的称为地图检查器的工具的基本原理。SVG地图的地图检查器可能类似于文本文档的拼写和语法检查器。它可以帮助人们制作更好的地图在互联网上发布，并通过改进地图的过程学习制图和平面设计。地图应该与观看者沟通地图中所表示的图形关系的逻辑。我们研究中使用的图形关系是基于雅克·贝尔坦提出的视觉变量。互联网上的许多地图包含不适当或错误的图形关系，用于视觉传达。互联网上的这些劣质地图是通过当前的GIS（地理信息系统）生成的，或者是由人们使用一些绘图软件绘制的。目前的GIS人员倾向于认为地理数据库是必不可少的，地图只是从数据库生成的时间视图。因此，GIS人员往往会忘记视觉传达的重要性，由于缺乏创建有效视觉传达的经验，他们正在以较少的想象力制作糟糕的地理数据库。我们提出的地图检查器不仅对普通的在线地图创作者有用，而且对GIS人员有用，可以将地图作为地理数据库的视图进行改进，并了解视觉交流对于生成复杂的地理数据库有多重要。

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), which has been developed in W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), is expected to be a new standard for XML-based graphics descriptions. In the near future, many maps on the Internet will be formatted as SVG. SVG-formatted maps are relatively easily understood by machines because of their internal design structures, compared with image-formatted maps that have been mainly used as graphics on the Web. This paper introduces basic principles of our proposed tool called map checker for checking SVG maps using the knowledge of cartography. The map checker for SVG maps may become something similar to spelling and grammar checkers for text documents. It may help people create better maps to be published on the Internet, and learn cartography and graphic design through the process of improving maps.Maps should communicate the logic of graphic relations represented in the maps with viewers. The graphic relations used in our research are based on visual variables proposed by Jacques Bertin. Many maps on the Internet include inappropriate or wrong graphic relations for visual communication. These bad maps on the Internet are generated through current GIS (Geographic Information Systems), or created by people using some drawing software. Present GIS people have a tendency to think that the geographic databases are essential and maps are only temporal views generated from the databases. As a result, GIS people tend to forget the importance of visual communication, and they are producing poor geographic databases with less imagination, due to a lack of experience in creating effective visual communication. Our proposed map checker will be useful not only for ordinary on-line map creators but for GIS people to improve maps as views of geographic databases, and to learn how important the visual communication is for producing sophisticated geographic databases.