Qualitative
Collaborative Planning in Geographic Space: Some Computational
Issues
Dimitris Papadias and Max Egenhofer
Abstract
Frequently people communicate spatial information using qualitative
relations (constraints) between distinct objects rather than
absolute coordinates. The constraints that have been used in the
GIS literature are topological (e.g., disjoint, overlap), direction
(e.g., north, east) and distance constraints (e.g., near, far). The
importance of qualitative spatial constraints has led to their
application in several domains related to GIS and Spatial
Databases. In this paper we study computational issues involved in
qualitative collaborative planning in geographic space. We assume a
number of decision makers (thereafter called agents) each having a
set of beliefs about a given spatial planning problem. These
beliefs are expressed in the form of qualitative spatial
constraints between a set of objects. The problem is to generate
spatial plans that are consistent with the agents' constraints.
NCGIA Research Initiative 17