Development of dynamic three-dimensional coastal information system: a case study in Hong Kong

Coastal-related data are four-dimensional in nature, varying not only in location and water depth but also in time. The heterogeneous and dynamic nature of coastal-related data makes modeling and visualization of these data a challenging task. A new object-oriented spatiotemporal data model to represent dynamic three-dimensional coastal data is proposed in this study. In the proposed model, a set of abstract data types allowing suitable spatiotemporal operations is defined to manipulate complex coastal data. In addition, a logical data model is proposed for the design of a spatiotemporal database. The proposed object-oriented and logical data models are implemented in a real-world coastal information management system in Hong Kong. An elegant visualization framework for displaying the coastal data, based on the concept of a time–depth bar, is presented in the case study. doi: 10.2166/hydro.2012.048 Bi Yu Chen Jianzhong Lu Xiaoling Chen (corresponding author) State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430079, China E-mail: [email protected] Bi Yu Chen Jianzhong Lu Onyx W.H. Wai Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China