From Quantitative to Qualitative Spaces

Based on previous work, we present our position statement encompassing two mutually complementary topics. The first topic pertains to the ontological grounding of quantitatively specified synthetic environment data. Here, the objective is to generate a qualitative spatial description of a quantitatively modelled (e.g., using primitive geometric features) synthetic environment. The basic aim here is to generate qualitative descriptions of the objects contained in the synthetic environment in terms of spatial relationships pertaining to differing spatial domains. Although the discussion here is grounded in the context of a ’Synthetic Environment Data Representation and Interchange Specification’ (SEDRIS), which is primarily used in the (defence) Modelling and Simulation (M&S) domain, the proposed approach is easily extendable to Geographic Information System (GIS) datasets. Second is the topic of object-level modelling and analysis in next generation dynamic (temporal and event-based) GIS. Here, we propose the macro-level causal analysis of aggregate phenomena in order to serve a high-level qualitative modelling and explanatory function. To establish a context, the modelling of the dynamic spatio-temporal evolution of hot-spots is projected as a potential applica-