1

A Graphical Introduction to Survey Adjustment

DR. W. TOBLER

Geography Department / University of California / Santa Barbara / United
States

Abstract
It is important that cartographers, and others who use geographic
information, understand the procedures used to adjust empirical
measurements made for the purpose of specifying locations. Two
new graphical interpretations of reconciling distance or
directional observations are presented in this paper. These
graphics are consistent with standard practice, but treat the
problems in a somewhat more general, nonmathematical manner,
facilitating understanding. An example is given using driving
distances to obtain a map configuration for points in the United
States.

Land surveying consists of geometric measurements made on the surface
of the earth. Since it is known that all measurements are, to some extent,
wrong, it is appropriate that surveying errors should be recognized
explicitly. When this is done, it is possible to attempt to compensate for
these unavoidable measurement errors. The process of compensation is
known as survey adjustment. From a pedagogical point of view, it is useful
to provide students with an intuitive understanding of the problem and its
solution before a formal statement is presented. This is as true of
surveying adjustments as it is of other topics in cartography. In addition,
many non-specialists (e.g. geographic information systems practitioners)
occasionally need an understanding of this topic. The graphical procedures
illustrated below are put forth in this spirit. They are not intended to
replace the more complete analytical statements given in the literature;
although these are sketched out in the appendix for the sake of
completeness, the algebraic details may be skipped on first reading. The
demonstrations appear new as graphical formulations, but, of course, do not
add anything novel in an intellectual sense. Like Bowditchs graphical
method of traverse adjustment (see Appendix), these illustrations provide
easily understandable procedures for the reconciliation of redundant or
inconsistent surveying measurements.
On the two-dimensional surface of the earth, only two measurements
are required to fix a location we need both latitude and longitude, but
only those two. Until about 1800, if a surveyor happened to make more than
two measurements relating to one position, he would likely sweep the
inconsistencies under the rug. We have now learned that the discrepancies
between multiple measurements measurements that should give the same
result tell us something about the quality of our work, and we insist on
redundancies to estimate the error and to adjust the observations. The
graphical procedures demonstrated here in Figures 2 and 4 also illustrate
these redundancies, and show how to resolve them.
Surveying consists of measurements to determine four largely
independent properties of a set of points. How the measurements are made is
dependent on the technology available at the time. The properties (shown in
Figure 1) to be obtained from the measurements, and their interpretation,
are:
2

1) Configuration. The meaning of this is easily illustrated by the
difference between an equilateral triangle and an oblique triangle, or by
the difference between a square and a trapezoid. Shapes differ. The
measurement of angles is sufficient to determine a configuration, but
distances also suffice. Reflection about a line does not change the
relation between points of a configuration, so that an image may appear
backwards to the viewer. Rotation also does not change the relations of a
configuration.
2) Scale. Identically shaped triangles may be drawn to different sizes. At
least one measurement of distance is necessary to determine the size of a
configuration.
3) Orientation. A single triangle can be rotated to different orientations.
This is most easily seen using non-equilateral triangles. In land
surveying, the orientation is determined by an azimuth directed to a star.
Where is North?
4) Position. A triangle, even when size and orientation are fixed, can be
moved about. To determine its position, it needs to be related to another
configuration; in terrestrial systems this is generally taken to mean
fixing the configuration relative to latitude and longitude, i.e., with
respect to Greenwich and the Equator.

Just listed are the geometrical measurements involved in land surveying.
Neglected here are measurements of time, and the intensity and direction of
magnetism and gravity, and considerations of refraction. The actual
instruments used for the measurements have changed with the technology. In
the early period, distance measurements predominated. Then, between c. 1650
and 1950 AD, it was more practicable to measure angles, especially after
telescopic theodolites were invented. Thus, triangulation was the preferred
method of measurement. Plane tables using angle sightings, and avoiding
mathematics by using graphical solutions, were also common during the 17th,
18th, and 19th centuries. Recently, with the advent of electromagnetic
distance measuring devices, trilateration has become the preferred method
of surveying measurement. Global Positioning Systems, which estimate
distances in three dimensions and are thus similar to trilateration, have
added to the repertoire of surveying measurements, and also allow heights
to be obtained rather simply.
Of the four aforementioned properties, the present discussion treats
determination of only the configuration. Two cases are demonstrated. The
first is a trilateration, in which distances between pairs of points are
the givens of the problem; the second is a triangulation, in which angles
relating triplets of points are known. In each instance, the objective is
the determination of the configuration of the points in a two-dimensional
space. In surveying, the usual case is the hybrid one for which some angles
and some distances have been measured. It is easily seen, and is left to
the reader, that this hybrid case can be obtained by superposition of the
two pure cases. The examples are illustrated for a plane, but they can
easily be extended to a sphere of known radius. Extension to the ellipsoid
is, of course, more difficult, since this is no longer a surface of
constant curvature. On the other hand, the examples have been formulated in
a manner that is slightly more general than is usual in surveying texts.
For example, a triangle-by-triangle solution is not illustrated, although
it is still standard in many textbooks. Instead, it is assumed that nearly
all of the possible relations between the points in the configuration have
3
been measured, and that a total solution is desired. From a pedagogical
point of view, this seems more appropriate for the current environment, in
which such problems are solved in practice with the aid of computers. The
typical case in land surveying is one in which only a small subset (the
intervisible places) of all possible relations are observed, i.e., there
are a large number of missing observations, but those which have actually
been observed may have been measured several times. Both circumstances are
easily incorporated into the procedure given here. In cases for which an
approximate initial configuration is known the usual case in land
surveying there are no difficulties of convergence or uniqueness of the
iterative algorithms. From a cartographic point of view, it is also
interesting to recognize that the same procedures can be used in more
general situations, e.g., to construct approximate mental maps from
perceived distances between places, to construct maps of travel times
between places, and so on. The trilateration model is the easier of the two
to interpret in these contexts.

Trilateration
In high school, one learns how to compute distances from coordinates
using the Pythagorean theorem. The inverse problem determining
coordinates from distances is not taught, but it is just what is needed
here. There are n(n-l)/2 possible (symmetric) distances between n points.
As long as there are six or more points, this quantity grows quadratically
with a linear increase in the number of points, so that the configuration
is over-determined; we should really need only 2n distances in two
dimensions one pertaining to each pair of points. That is because the
points are fixed when one has the two coordinates. The overdeterminedness
permits a solution even when the distances are known only approximately.
For example far, farther, and farthest, or near and far, and similar
qualitative statements of the distance between places, actually provide an
adequate amount of information to compute coordinates for a configuration
when there is a sufficient number of these non-numerical relational
statements. That is due to the fact that n(n-1)/2 grows much faster than
2n. Even topological adjacency information (A is adjacent to B, C is
between D and E, etc.) often suffices, as has been shown by Kendall (1971).
A very similar procedure, known as multi-dimensional scaling, is used in
many social sciences to determine the relative position of people according
to their similarity on some attribute. A good reference is Shepard (1962);
also see Borg and Lingoes (1987). Chemists use a similar technique to
assist in the positioning of atoms within a molecule (Sippl and Scheraga
1985), and an application for the computation of best least squares
distance-preserving map projections is given in Tobler (1977). A computer
game (Dewdney 1987) is based on a generalization, to include asymmetric
distances, of equivalent principles. The interesting case of non-
symmetrical distances can be interpreted as implying an underlying force
field representable by a map of vectors (Tobler 1976).

The trilateration problem may now be stated as follows:
Given empirical distances between n points, find a configuration of
these points in such a manner that the distances between the points in the
solution agree as nearly as possible with the given distances.
Implicit in the present context is the assumption that we are looking
for a configuration of points in a two-dimensional Euclidean space. Of
course, these assumptions can be modified if one wishes to use a different
4
model for example, the surface of a spheroid. A configuration is
determined when one has coordinates for all of the places. As nearly as
possible is taken in the least squares sense. You should contrast the
method described below with nave attempts, using a compass, to draw
circles of appropriate size from each point in order to determine locations
by intersection. This becomes increasingly difficult when several distances
are considered about each point. The method is workable if one considers
only a limited number of distances from each point, as was apparently done
hundreds of years ago; see, e.g., Gasser (1904).

THE SOLUTION
An iterative graphical approximation is described in the following
steps, and illustrated in Figure 2. This graphic is the most important
innovation. It helps to be systematic about arranging all of the observed
distances in an n-by-n table similar to those found in road atlases.

1. Locate the n points approximately on a piece of paper. If something
close to their actual location is known, use this arrangement of the points
as the starting configuration; otherwise locate the points arbitrarily
(i.e., guess). A convenient arbitrary starting arrangement is to space the
points equally on a circle whose diameter is the mean of all of the
distances. A nice alternative initial configuration is given in an article
by Spencer (1986). Label each of the points on the paper, so that they may
be distinguished.
2. Draw a straight line through each pair of points. This could yield up
to n(n-l)/2 lines. Omit this step if no distance is known for the
corresponding pair of points. This allows for unobserved or missing
distances. Draw a double line (or multiple lines) for repetitions of the
same measurement.
3. On each of these lines center a segment - of the desired length to
the scale chosen. These segments are shown as thick lines in Figure 2, part
3.
4. Draw vectors from each point to the ends of the segments representing
the desired distances. These vectors may be pointing toward the connecting
point or away from it, depending on whether the present configuration has
the points too far from, or too close to, their connecting point.
5. Average the vectors intersecting at each of the points. Move each
point to the new position defined by the average of the local vectors. Omit
this step if the location of a point is taken, a priori, to be fixed.
6. If no points have moved in step 5, stop, because all of the vectors
are in equilibrium; otherwise, go to step 2 and use the new positions of
all of the points to start another iteration cycle.

The vectors remaining at each point after step 6 provide one measure of
the inconsistencies of the observations pertaining to that point with
respect to the chosen model. A convenient graphical representation can be
made by drawing a circle at each point whose radius is the average of the
lengths of these residual vectors. Alternatively, use a polygon drawn to
connect the end points of these vectors, or a standard deviational ellipse.
These ellipses are not quite the same as would be obtained from an analysis
based on the strength of the configuration as a whole.

Algebraic Details
A computational algorithm for trilateration can be devised by examining the
5
relations in the vicinity of one point in more detail, as illustrated next
(Figure 3). For each observed distance:
1. Compute ds
ij
=(D
ij
-d
ij
)/2. The observed distance between points i and j
is D
ij
and the guessed distance is d
ij.

2. Compute the direction cosine of the line from point i to point j as
cos
ij
= (x
i
x
j
)/d
ij
. Here the xs are the guessed coordinates.
3. Compute the change in the x direction at the i
th
point with respect to
the j
th
point from elementary trigonometry as
dx
ij
= cos
ij
ds
ij
=(x
i
-x
j
)(D
ij
-d
ij
)/2d
ij

Similarly, compute
dy
ij
= sin
ij
ds
ij
= (y
i
-y
j
)(D
ij
-d
ij
)/2d
ij

where the y
i
and Y
j
are again the guessed coordinates.
4. The total change in the x or y direction is the average of all of the
partial changes,
dx
i
= 1/(n-1)3
n
j=1
dx
ij
And
dy
1
= 1/(n-1) 3
n
j=1
dy
ij
.
5. Set x
i
= x
i
+ dx
i
.
y
i
= y
i
+ dy
i
.
D
ij
= [(x
i
x
j
)
2
+ (y
i
y
j
)
2
]

These give the new guess, i.e., the adjusted values for the coordinates of
the i
th
point. Repeat the procedure for each point.
6. If there has been no change, or if comparing the mean square error
1/(n-1)3
n
(D
ij
- d
ij
)
2
with the desired accuracy level gives a satisfactory
result, then stop. Otherwise go to step 1 and use the new values obtained
from step 5 as the guess for further adjustment.
These steps allow the preparation of an iterative computer program. It is
pedagogically amusing to allow a graphical display to show the points
moving relative to each other during the iterations. The error ellipses can
also be easily programmed.
Triangulation
Angles relate to a triple of points, rather than a pair, and a size
specification requires one distance to be chosen for a scale. Other than
this, the solution procedure is similar to that given for trilateration.
The problem is stated formally as:
Given angles between n places, determine a configuration of points so that
the angles computed from the points in this solution agree, as nearly as
possible, with the given angles.
As before one looks for coordinates in a two-dimensional Euclidean
space and as nearly as possible is taken in the least squares sense. A
graphical solution procedure is given in several steps, listed below and
illustrated in the newly devised figure (Figure 4).

THE SOLUTION
1) Locate all points appropriately (or arbitrarily) to obtain an initial
configuration.
2) Consider any triplet of points i, j, k. Draw a line from point i to
point j, then a line from point i to point k. Now, bisect the angle at
point i made from these two lines.
3) With a protractor, mark off one half of the desired i.e. observed
and measured angle on either side of the bisector drawn in step 2. Draw
the lines from i out past j and k along these directions. Skip steps 2 and
3 if there is no observed angle for this triplet.
4) Use a compass centered at the point i to draw circular arcs from each
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of the points j and k to the nearer of the lines drawn in step 3. This gives
the adjusted positions of points j and k with respect to the angle at the
point i.
5) Repeat steps 2 through 4 for all triplets for which angles are known.
6) Average the adjusted positions at each point by calculating the vector
mean of all of the displacements.
7) Repeat steps 2 through 6, unless no points have moved in step 6 in
which event the residual displacements all cancel. These residuals then
give a measure of the standard error. The adjustment has now been
completed.

Algebraic Details
On the basis of the preceding steps and illustrations, it is rather easy to
derive explicit equations for the changes at each point when adjusting a
triangulation (Figure 5).
1. The initial (perhaps arbitrary) positioning of the points gives them
coordinates. Use these to calculate angles.
2. Calculate the angle
i

jk
separating point j from point k as seen from
the location at point i. From the figure, this is clearly
i

jk
= tan
-1
[(y
j
-
y
i
)/x
j
-x
i
)] tan
-1
[(y
k
-y
i
)/(x
k
-x
i
)].
3. Calculate
j
, the angle at the point i between the horizontal and the
point j. From the preceding construction rules, this is
j
=
k
+
i

jk
/2 +
i

jk
/2, where
i

jk
is the angle obtained in step 1, and
i

jk
is the desired
(observed) angle between j and k taken at i, and is thus known by the
conditions of the problem. The angle at i between the horizontal and the
point k is
k
i.e.,

k
= tan
-1
[(y
k
-y
i
)/(x
k
-x
i
)]
4. Consider the right triangle r
j
, a, b in Figure 5. The value of the
unknown y
j
is y
j
- y
j
+ y
I
= r
j
sin(
j
) y
j
+ y
i
.
From the same right triangle, the unknown value x
i
is
x
i
= x
j
x
i
- b = x
j
x
i
-r
j
cos(
i
). By the construction method, the length r
j
is [(x
i
x
j
)
2
+ (y
i
y
j
)
2
]
1/2

5. The changes needed to convert the coordinates for the point j into j
are thus
y
j
= y
j
+ y
j
= y
I
+ r
j
sin (
j
)
x
j
= x
j
+ x
j
= x
j
x
i
r
j
cos(
j
)
A similar analysis would yield the adjustment values for x
k
and y
k
.
6. After calculation of the adjustment to be applied to each point
individually, the vector mean is again used as the final displacement for
that iteration. The process is then repeated, with the insertion of an
appropriate stopping rule.
Example
Here is a simple example of a trilateration problem, as given to
students, along with a sketch of its solution.
GIVEN TRAVEL DISTANCES:
San Francisco is 820 miles from Seattle, 340 from Santa Barbara, and 400
from Los Angeles, and its 1770 to Dallas, 2000 to Minneapolis, and 1270 to
Denver.
Miami is 680 miles from Atlanta, 1330 from Dallas, and 2090 from Denver.
From Atlanta to Boston is 1100 miles; to Dallas its 810; to Denver its
1440; to Minneapolis its 1130.
Minneapolis is 1400 miles from Boston, 870 miles from Denver, and 1640 from
Seattle.
Los Angeles is 1430 miles from Dallas, and 1170 miles from Denver.
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Denver is 800 miles from Dallas, 1990 miles from Boston, 1170 from Los
Angeles, and 1370 from Seattle.
These data were assembled during vacation trips by automobile. It is
suspected that they might contain slight inaccuracies due to the nature of
the travelers accounts used.
You are to:
1)Prepare a map of city locations from the given data, and describe how
you did it.
2)Evaluate the accuracy of the map at each place, relative to the given
data.
3)Evaluate the accuracy of the overall map relative to the given data
(i.e., use internal evidence).
Do not use any data not given here, except your general knowledge of US
geography.
THE SOLUTION
The first step is to array the data systematically in a table; only half of
the table is needed, since its symmetrical, and places with only one
connection can be ignored.
ATL 0
BOS 1100 0
DAL 810 - 0
DEN 1440 1990 800 0
LAX - - 1430 1170 0
MIA 680 - 1330 2090 - 0
MIN 1130 1400 - 870 - - 0
SFO - - 1770 1270 400 - 2000 0
SEA - - - 1370 - - 1640 820 0
ATL BOS DAL DEN LAX MIA MIN SFO SEA
Only twenty of the possible thirty-six distances are given. As initial
coordinates on can use:
X Y
ATL 2600 700
BOS 3300 1800
DAL 1800 500
DEN 1050 1050
LAX 300 500
MIA 3100 150
MIN 1000 1700
SFO 100 900
SEA 200 1700
Obtained by placing the cities in their approximate locations on graph
paper. After several hundred iterations, the root mean square error is 44
units (a 99.1% fit to the data) and the solution coordinates are:
X Y
ATL 2538 700
BOS 3168 1588
DAL 1727 473
DEN 1211 1073
LAX 242 497
MIA 3066 233
MIN 1794 1637
SFO -19 837
SEA 79 1689
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The resulting distances are, to the nearest mile:
ATL 0
BOS 1089 0
DAL 842 1822 0
DEN 1378 2023 791 0
LAX 2304 3122 1485 1127 0
MIA 705 1359 1361 2036 2836 0
MIN 1196 1375 1166 811 1925 1895 0
SFO 2560 3274 1783 1252 429 3143 1981 0
SEA 2650 3090 2048 1289 1202 3323 1715 857 0
ATL BOS DAL DEN LAX MIA MIN SFO SEA
The accompanying illustration (Figure 7) positions the places, and the
ellipses represent the (enlarged) residual errors at each point. Plotting
all of the given connections as lines between the cities (Figure 6)
suggests that the distance Miami-Boston would strengthen the net. The
solution has produced a plane map, as requested. The curvature of the earth
has been ignored, although the initial road distances implicitly included
this curvature, as well as bends in the roads.
As a test of your comprehension of trilateration solution, do this:
plot a diagram and determine a set of coordinates for five points, A
through E, that satisfy the following relations:
AE < BC < BE < CD < AB < AD < CE < BD < DE <AC where AE < BC means that
the distance from A to E is less than the distance from B to C. For
convenience, you may take AE as equal to some convenient unit, e. g., one
hundred paces. Observe that the configuration is quite rigidly determined,
although no numbers are specified. To feed a computer program (which
requires numbers) this problem, just pick numbers that increase in the
sequence given.
Appendix
The graphical adjustment of a traverse is sufficiently in keeping with
the methods described here that it is worth repeating. In a traverse one
observes (measures) both angles and distances. The description is taken
from Johnson(1907):
If a closed traverse be carried out and drawn with the greatest
care, using a scale and protractor, it will not in general close
exactly on the paper. This is partly due to errors in
measurement: not having the center of the compass exactly over
the station, the friction of the compass, poor measurement of
distances in consequence of sloping ground, and so on. But it is,
perhaps to an even greater extent, due to accumulation of drawing
errors, and this is particularly so where the included angles are
used directly, instead of bearings. Assuming that the error is
not so great as to indicate some serious mistake, it is
distributed over the different lines before plotting the details.
Thus, if a traverse ABCDE be plotted as in Figure 8, and the last
line EA terminates at A
1
(when its direction and length are set
off) instead of coming back to A, then A
1
A is called the closing
error.
To correct it, from each station as plotted draw a line
parallel to A
1
A, in the direction from A
1
to A. Now, at station B
along this parallel, we set off a distance Bb such that
Bb:A
1
A::AB:whole perimeter of figure.
The perimeter is found by adding all the sides of the traverse
together. We shall denote it by P so that P = AB + BC + CD + DE +
9
EA. Along the parallel at C we set off Cc, so that Cc:A
1
A::AB+BC:
and so on.
Then, the corrected traverse is entered by joining the points so
found as shown by the dotted lines and the offsets are
plotted by these lines.
The amounts Bb, Cc, etc., may be found graphically as follows:
Set off lengths AB, BC, etc., along a horizontal line to
represent the sides of the traverse to any convenient scale. At
A
1
set up A
1
a
1
, equal to the closing error on the paper. Now join
Aa
1
, and draw lines parallel to A
1
a
1
to meet it at b, c, etc.
Then, clearly, Bb, Cc, etc., will represent the corrections at
the different stations. This method of correction, put into a
mathematical form, is known as Bowditchs method (from the name
of the inventor) and was awarded the prize in a competition in
the United States as the method which, according to the theory of
probability, gave the minimum distortion of the original
measurements.

The Bowditch method, as pointed out in the last paragraph, clearly
applies to the adjustment of the measurement errors, although Johnson
stresses errors in drawing. This simple method is easily converted to a
computer algorithm.
Surveying papers (e.g., Wolf (1969)) give the more algebraic treatment
for the trilateration and triangulation adjustment problems. For example,
the usual adjustment of a trilateration goes along the following lines: We
want to minimize the sum of the squares of the differences between the
observed distances and the solution distances, i.e., minimize
=
n
(D
ij
- d
ij
)

, where D
ij
are observed, and d
ij
are distances calculated
from the as yet unknown solution coordinates x and y:
d
ij
= [(x
i
x
j
)
2
(y
i
y
j
)
2
]

This function is linearized, using the
Taylor series, as

Here the values with superscripts denote initial (perhaps arbitrary)
guesses for the coordinates and the distances computed therefrom. There is
one such equation for each known distance. Substitute these equations into
the equation for epsilon, expand the square, take the partial derivatives
of with respect to each unknown, and set these derivatives to zero, to
solve for the normal equations involving the four changes to the
coordinates dx
i
, dx
j
, dy
i
, dy
j
. This is most easily done using matrix
algebra. The small corrections added to the initial coordinates yield the
new, improved guesses, and these are then used to repeat the process.
Iteration ceases when the coordinates no longer change appreciably. This
formulation makes clear the procedure to be used when some of the n(n -
1)/2 possible observations are lacking (then there is no equation for that
particular distance), or when they are of unequal accuracy. In the later
case, one uses a weighted least-squares procedure, with inverse variances
as weights.
There is an alternative way of looking at the problem. Array the
observed distances in a table D
ij
so that any entry is the distance from
the point i to the point j, as in a road atlas table. This array will be
symmetric, since the original distances are symmetric. Then, form a new n--
by-n table, with elements obtained from the distances, as follows
10

The components of the eigenvectors corresponding to the two largest
eigenvalues of this new matrix are the desired coordinates, with origin at
the centroid of the distribution of points, and with axes corresponding to
the principal axes of the distribution of points. A computer program to
perform these calculations has been published in Tobler (1970).
The foregoing result is based on theorems described in the
psychometrical literature (Torgerson, 1958):
a) If a matrix is positive semi-definite (i.e., has nonnegative latent
roots), then the distances can be considered to relate points lying in a
real Euclidean space.
b) The number of positive latent roots is equal to the dimensionality
of the set of points.
c) If the rank of an n-by-n positive semi-definite matrix is r by n,
then the matrix can be decomposed into the product of an n-by-r matrix of r
characteristic vectors and its r-by-n transpose. The n elements of the
characteristic vectors can be considered the projections of the points on
r-orthogonal axes in the r-dimensional real Euclidean space.
The application in psychology is to locate stimuli relative to each
other when one is given only estimated dissimilarities. Restricting oneself
to two dimensions requires consideration of only the first two eigenvec-
tors. Since the observed distances may not have come from a two-dimensional
Euclidean space, and will certainly include measurement errors, the method
cannot give a perfect fit. A measure of the adequacy of the fit is, of
course, available by comparison of the observed and solution distances.
The comparable triangulation problem is posed as follows: Given n
angles
i

jk
measured from j to k at the i
th
point, find positions identified
by coordinates such that the angles
i

jk
calculated from these coordinates
are, as nearly as possible, the same as the given angles. The condition to
be minimized, with angles in radian measure, is

This is linearized using Taylor series, and an initial guess for alpha
and the sought-for coordinates, x
i
, x
j
, x
k
, y
i
, y
j
y
k
as

Substitution of this expansion into the equation for epsilon, squaring
and summing, etc., gets one the least-squares solution for all of the
changes dx, dy to each of the coordinates. This is known as the method of
variation of coordinates. It is equivalent to the graphical method outlined
in the body of the text. Iteration gives the corrections to the
11
coordinates, and converges rapidly in most land-surveying problems
especially when a good guess is used as the initial configuration.

References
BORG, I. AND J. LINGOES. 1987. Multidimensional Similarity Structure
Analysis. New York: Springer. 390 pp.
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635644.

Dr. Tobler is research Professor Emeritus of Geography at the Santa

Barbara campus of the University of California, and co-investigator in the
National Center for Geographical Information and Analysis at UCSB. His
research specialties include map projections, spatial interpolation, and
the cartography of human migration.

Cartographica, 1996, pp. 33-42.

Rsum Une introduction graphique La compensation des levs I1 est
important que les cartographes et tout autre usager dinformation
gographique comprennent les procdures utilises pour compenser les
mesures empiriques effectues pour determiner des positions. Cet article
prsente deux nouvelles interpretations graphiques pour reconcilier les
observations de distances et de directions. Ces graphiques respectent la
pratique courante mais traitent les problmes dune faon plus gnrale,
non mathmatique et facilitant la comprehension. On donne un exemple en
utilisant des distances routires pour obtenir une configuration carto-
graphique de points aux Etats-Unis.

12
Zusammenfassung Eine graphische Einfuhrung in den Ausgleich von
Vermessungsergebnissen Es ist wichtig, da Kartographen und andere Nutzer
geographischer Information die Verfahren verstehen, nach denen empirische
Messungen zum Zweck der Spezifikation von Ortslagen ausgeglichen werden. In
diesem Aufsatz werden zwei neue graphische interpretationen dafr gegeben,
wie man Entfernungs- oder Richtungsbeobachtungen in Einklang bringen kann.
Diese Graphiken sind mit der Standardpraxis vertrglich, behandeln aber die
einschlagigen Probleme auf eine generellere, nichtmathematischer Art die
das Verstndnis erleichtert. In einem Beispiel werden Straenentfernungen
verwendet,um eine Kartenkonfiguration fr Punkte in den Vereinigten Staaten
zu erstellen.











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