This paper investigates a method to integrate the management of various kinds of map data. The authors developed an integrated map database management system for in-car navigation systems by using the integrated map data model. This model has two features for managing various map data. One is use of common map handling methods and the other is the consistency propagation mechanism. The common methods make it easy to develop application software which handles various map data. The consistency propagation mechanism automatically maintains consistency among the map items, which are gathered from different resources, by propagating a change in some map items to other related map items. The authors also made a map editor, using the integrated map data model. The editor is able to update the links in the map's road network and add new links to the road map by tracing an overlapped large-scale and highly accurate city map in an exact position. This development makes it possible to produce a high-quality digital road map for car navigation systems.
Samenvatting