Kathleen Hornsby and
Max Egenhofer COSIT '97, Laurel Highlands, PA,
S. Hirtle and A. Frank (eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1329, Springer-Verlag, pp. 15-33, October 1997.
Abstract
Current geographic information systems (GISs) have been designed
for querying and maintaining static databases representing static
phenomena and give little support to those users who wish to
represent dynamic information or incorporate temporality into their
studies. In order to integrate phenomena that change over space and
time in GISs, a better understanding of the underlying components
of change and how people reason about change is needed. This paper
focuses on a qualitative representation of change with respect to
objects. It offers a classification of change based on object
identity and the set of operations that either preserve or change
identity. These operations can be applied to single or composite
objects and combined to express the semantics of sequences of
change. An iconic, visual language is developed to represent the
various types of change and applied to examples to illustrate the
application of this language. Such a formalization of the basic
components of change lays the foundation for an new generation of
formal models that capture the semantics of change and lead to
improved interoperability between GISs and process models or
simulation software.
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Kathleen Hornsby and
Max Egenhofer