Raster-mode area generalization for land use and land cover maps.

Raster mode is more appropriate than vector mode for the computer-assisted generalization of land use and land cover data. A raster-mode approach promotes the partitioning of thin or insignificant polygons and the growing or linking of others. If the scale is reduced substantially, partitioning and region growing are needed to guarantee a graphically stable image which will resist misregistration during reproduction. The test examples demonstrate the efficacy of a raster-mode approach in reducing 1:250 000 scale land use and land cover data in the USGS's GIRAS to 1:2 000 000, the scale of the National Atlas series of regional reference maps.- from Author