PROMAP-a system for analysis of topographic maps

A system for automatic data acquisition from topographic maps (PROMAP-Processing of Maps) is presented. Maps are an important source of information for efficient spatial data evaluation using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). At present a lot of relevant maps have still to be digitized manually, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process. To improve the situation, the authors developed the PROMAP-system which incorporates adequate image analyzing methods. The system is capable of generating a symbolic description of the map contents that may be imported into a GIS (e.g. ARC/INFO)