The Methodology of Creating Variable Resolution Maps Based on the Example of Passability Maps

Abstract

The paper presents the methodology for creating variable resolution maps, which was developed by the author and implemented to generate passability maps. These studies are used in military applications and crisis management in order to determine the possibility of crossing the area off-road. They may significantly facilitate the process of planning rescue or search operations. The developed methodology uses source data in the form of a spatial database to generate maps consisting of Voronoi polygons. The proposed solution automates the process of creating such maps, which was realized in practice by developing a dedicated IT system. It served to generate a series of passability maps in various configurations, which were then thoroughly compared. The conducted research demonstrated that variable resolution passability maps may successfully replace maps that consist of sometimes several dozen times higher numbers of primary fields. This enables reducing the amount of data stored in computer memory and shortens the time necessary to access visualization and information analysis on passability maps.

Methodology of Using Terrain Passability Maps for Planning the Movement of Troops and Navigation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles

“…This paper is an elaboration of the previous studies, where the team from the Military University of Technology proposed a system for automated generation of terrain passability and accessibility maps [ 22 ]. The conducted research deals with their application with the use of various sources of spatial data [ 23 ], discussed the problems of accuracy [ 24 , 25 ] and the methods of cartographic visualisation of the resulting maps [ 26 ]. Apart from that, the authors proposed methodologies, conducted tests and analyses on the application of artificial neural networks (multi-layer perceptron [ 27 ] and Kohonen Self Organizing Map [ 28 ]) to generate maps.…”