Exploring potential human activities in physical and virtual spaces: a spatio-temporal GIS approach

Opportunities of potential human activities have extended from physical space to virtual space in today’s society. Based on a proposed conceptual framework that models the relationships between physical and virtual spaces, this paper presents an attempt to adjust the space-time prism concept of Hagerstrand’s time geography to identify potential activity opportunities in virtual space, focusing on virtual space access channels in physical space. A three-dimensional (3D) spatio-temporal geographic information system (GIS) design is then developed to accommodate the adjusted space-time prism concept and support the effective representation, visualization, and analysis of potential human activities and interactions in physical and virtual spaces using the prism representation. Following the design, a prototype system is successfully implemented in a 3D GIS environment. Such a system will offer powerful analysis tools for studies related to potential human activities and applications such as location-based services (LBS) and accessibility analysis in the information age.