A Content-Based Approach to Searching and Indexing Spatial Configurations

A constant challenge of current spatial information systems i s the retrieval of spatial configurations. This paper describes a new approach to retrieving spatial information whose novelty lies in using a content measure of topological relations to search and index spatial configurations. This approach uses a tree-based schema to index relations between objects’ minimum bounding rectangles, it preprocesses the user query to obtain an ordered list of spatial constraints, and it explores three searching algorithms that work over an indexed domain: full-restrictive forward checking, partial-restrictive forward checking, and permutation-based searching. Experimental results show the viability of this type of indexing schema as well as the differences among searching algorithms.