Communications of the ACM
Math Makes Mobile Maps Meaningful
A new method developed by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ensures mathematically optical adaptation of the labeling to the perspective and driving direction on digital maps.
Credit: Nllenburg/KIT
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) researchers say they have developed a method to ensure mathematically optimal adaptation of the labeling to the perspective and driving direction on digital maps.
The researchers say the challenge is in keeping the representation and labeling clear, no matter how the user adjusts the visible range and how the route continues. "When the labelings overlap, jump, or flicker, the added value is lost and a driver distracted by irritating representations may be a danger in road traffic," says KIT researcher Martin Nollenburg.
He notes this area of research is of interest to mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists. "When increasing the number of objects in the map, the required computing capacity grows exponentially, and computing capacity quickly reaches its limits, especially on mobile devices," Nollenburg says.
To solve this problem, the researchers developed algorithms of higher performance due to a reasonable limitation of the general problem. "Instead of trying to maximize the number of displayed labelings, a good compromise of legibility, computing time, and information depth is reached by keeping the number of labelings in the given section constant," says KIT researcher Benjamin Niedermann.
From Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
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