Detecting conjugate-point pairs for map alignment between two polygon datasets

When the same objects in different datasets have different positions and shapes, map alignment is necessary to minimise these geometric inconsistencies for successful map integration. In this paper, we propose a method to detect conjugate-point pairs for aligning two polygon datasets by matching the contours of corresponding polygons. This method comprises three processes, including identification of the corresponding polygon pairs, shape approximation with virtual corner-vertices and detection of conjugate-point pairs with our modified vertex-attributed-string-matching (VASM) algorithm. We applied this method to two distinct spatial datasets; a cadastral map and a topographical map of the same urban area. Then, the performance of our method was assessed visually and statistically. Both evaluations showed satisfactory results.

Research highlights
► Detection of conjugate-point pairs for aligning polygon datasets.
► Identification of n:m corresponding polygon pairs with bipartite graph analysis.
► Shape approximation of polygon pairs with virtual corner-vertices.
► Detection of conjugate-point pairs in polygon pairs with contour matching.