Simplification of Country Outlines
Simplification is a common task in vector-based map visualization. In some situations you don't want to display a map in its full resolution for reasons like the overall filesize and the rendering time. One major class of simplification algorithms works by removing some vertices without moving the remaining ones. While there are already some good tutorials for implementation of line simplification algorithms online[1. for instance the Douglas Peuker Line Generalization or Lang Simplification and McMaster's Slide Averaging Algorithm], none of them takes into account the special requirements of map data simplifications. This gap will be closed by this post.