Gilberto Câmara,
Max Egenhofer, Fred Fonseca, A. Miguel Monteiro COSIT '01-Conference on Spatial Information Theory, Morro Bay, CA
D. Montello (ed.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 2121, Springer, pp. 474-488, September 2001.
Abstract
This paper discusses the ontological status of remote sensing
images, from a GIScience perspective. We argue that images have a
dual nature--they are fields at the measurement level and fiat
objects at the classification level--and that images have an
ontological description of their own, distinct and independent from
the domain ontology a domain scientist uses. This paper proposes a
multi-level ontology for images, combining both field and object
approaches and distinguishing between image and user ontologies.
The framework developed contributes to the design of a new
generation of integrated GISs, since two key benefits are achieved:
(1) the support for multiple perspectives for the same image and
(2) an emphasis on using images for the detection of
spatial-temporal configurations of geographic phenomena.
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Gilberto Câmara,
Max Egenhofer, 
Fred Fonseca, A. Miguel Monteiro