Linear feature conflation: An optimization‐based matching model with connectivity constraints

• Published in: Transactions in GIS Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 1205 - 1227
• Main Authors: Lei, Ting L., Lei, Zhen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2023
• Subjects: Cartography; Connectivity; Constraint modelling; Datasets; Geographic information systems; Geographical information systems; Integer programming; Linear programming; Matching; Methods; Optimization; Spatial data
• ISSN: 1361-1682; 1467-9671
• DOI: 10.1111/tgis.13062

Geospatial data conflation is the process of combining multiple datasets about a geographic phenomenon to produce a single, richer dataset. It has received increased research attention due to its many applications in map making, transportation, planning, and temporal geospatial analyses, among many others. One approach to conflation, attempted from the outset in the literature, is the use of optimization‐based conflation methods. Conflation is treated as a natural optimization problem of minimizing the total number of discrepancies while finding corresponding features from two datasets. Optimization‐based conflation has several advantages over traditional methods including conciseness, being able to find an optimal solution, and ease of implementation. However, current optimization‐based conflation methods are also limited. A main shortcoming with current optimized conflation models (and other traditional methods as well) is that they are often too weak and cannot utilize the spatial context in each dataset while matching corresponding features. In particular, current optimal conflation models match a feature to targets independently from other features and therefore treat each GIS dataset as a collection of unrelated elements, reminiscent of the spaghetti GIS data model. Important contextual information such as the connectivity between adjacent elements (such as roads) is neglected during the matching. Consequently, such models may produce topologically inconsistent results. In this article, we address this issue by introducing new optimization‐based conflation models with structural constraints to preserve the connectivity and contiguity relation among features. The model is implemented using integer linear programming and compared with traditional spaghetti‐style models on multiple test datasets. Experimental results show that the new element connectivity (ec‐bimatching) model reduces false matches and consistently outperforms traditional models.