Аннотация:Multiscale mapping is a hot topic in modern cartographic community, and is widely applied in geographic
research. It helps us to understand the structural patterns of geographical phenomena that appear in different
scales of observations. Sometimes these patterns are established by human, and may have strictly
defined borders, such as hierarchy of administrative units. Most of the natural phenomena do not have
such well-defined partonomy and can be decomposed into structural levels using spatial statistics and
generalization techniques. Our observational research summarizes modern achievements in development
of specialized visualization techniques and supporting data analytics for multiscale mapping. We show
that appropriate selection of graphical variables, such as color and size of symbols and areas, is essential
for understanding the differences between value distributions and spatial distributions in different scales.
Changes appearing across scales can be closely related to modifiable unit problem in case of administrative
units, and should be reflected in visual representations. We introduce a set of rules for thematic and
general mapping that allow for consistent changes of symbology in map zooming process. One of the
novelties of our study is establishment of the close relationship between visualization technique and underlying
generalization operations that support not only the geometric representation of the phenomena
itself, but gives the base geometric information for symbol placement and related properties. The study
is illustrated by various examples from general, hypsometric, hydrometeorological and socio-economical
mapping