A Key Numbering Solution for 1:25,000 Topographic Maps

The automatic placement of map labels in graphically dense areas is one of the challenging problems in modern cartography. Creation of the annotation layer still requires human interaction and automation of this process has significant potential for reducing the time required for map production. In this paper, we present a software technique for the key numbering process that we applied to approximately 20% of the 1:25,000 topographic maps of Turkey. The results were compared with those obtained from the traditional manual method. The consistency of the results is above 90%, achieving time savings of 70%, which indicates an substantial improvement in topographic map production.