Carthnographic Conflicts

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Poor choices of symbolization and representation can lead to cartographic conflicts of diverse types. The word conflict here is interpreted in a broader sense, as a visualization issue or shortcoming. Common cartographic conflicts found in map mashups or map creations in the context of neocartgraphy are unwanted feature overlaps, visual clutter, misuse of color schemes and color rules, and lack of contrast and visual hierarchy. A map consists of parts (symbols and features) that form a whole. Cartographic conflicts occurring at the part level lead to cartographically unsound maps, but they also impact the legibility of the map as a whole and its capability to communicate information effectively and thus preventing the transfer of knowledge. These conflicts are often linked to using geospatial data at smaller scale than they were intended for and without applying any generalization methods. Thus, geometric features are too detailed for the specific scale, which leads to coalescence and congestion, and an overall visual clutter. Additionally, it can cause unwanted feature overlaps, …show more content…

Especially, certain color conventions such as blue for hydrology features or green for forest are expected from many map users and symbolizing them in another color without other cartographically grounded reasons can lead to confusion or misinterpretation. Moreover, different types of color schemes carry different meaning about the data they represent, being either quantitative or qualitative differences, as well as sequential or diverging phenomenon. Consequently, color issues arise either when the option to modify the symbolization is offered, but without any color functionality to support it, or when there is no possibility to change the symbolization, which leads to incompatibility between the different layer

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