Generating Dynamic Raster Data

Benchmarking of spatio-temporal databases is an issue of growing importance. In case large real data sets are not available, benchmarking requires the generation of artificial data sets following the realworld behavior of spatial objects that change their locations, shapes and sizes over time. In this report, a generator for changing raster data, called “Generator of Time-Evolving Regional Data” (G-TERD), is presented. The basic concepts that determine the function of G-TERD are the structure of complex two-dimensional raster objects, their color, maximum speed, zoom and rotation-angle per time slot, the influence of other moving or static objects on the speed and on the moving direction of an object, the position and movement of the scene-observer, the statistical distribution of each changing factor and finally, time. In the framework developed, the user can control the generator response by setting several parameters values.