AUTOMATED ANNOTATION IN THE GEBCO DIGITAL ATLAS

The GEBCO series of bathymetric charts of the world's oceans has developed over a long time, with many changes in format, content and detail. A digital version, the GEBCO Digital Atlas, is currently under preparation using the present (fifth) edition as a starting point. One of the methods for distribution will be the CD-ROM optical disk. With the potential of this medium for handling considerably more information than can be portrayed on paper and the use of the electronic medium for mapping applications, a number of cartographic issues are raised, one of which is feature annotation. Research into techniques for carrying out this process automatically has focused almost exclusively on land-based applications. The application of these techniques to bathymetric mapping is discussed, with particular attention paid to the problems involved with viewing data at arbitrary scale factors, and a number of possible solutions are presented.