This paper develops a new framework for analyzing the relations among distributions of spatial objects. Existing analytical methods usually focus on the distribution of one or two specific types of spatial objects. This paper, on the other hand, deals with the relations among more than two distributions of spatial objects. The framework is applicable independent of the type of spatial objects. ...

Integrity constraints play a major role when the quality of spatial data is checked by automatic procedures. Nevertheless the possibilities of checking the internal consistency of the integrity constraints themselves are hardly researched yet. This work analyses the applicability of reasoning techniques like the composition of spatial relations and constraint satisfaction in networks of relatio...

Qualitative spatial reasoning (QSR) is often claimed to be cognitively more plausible than conventional numerical approaches to spatial reasoning, because it copes with the indeterminacy of spatial data and allows inferences based on incomplete spatial knowledge. The paper reports experimental results concerning the cognitive adequacy of an important approach used in QSR, namely the spatial int...

Determining the spatial relations between objects is a primary function of a geographic information system (GIS). One important aspect of spatial relations is topological relations, which remain constant under topological transformations. Describing the geometry of a spatial object using the OpenGIS Simple Features Specification requires only simple features: the interior, boundary and exterior...

Information describing the layout of objects in space is commonly conveyed through the use of linguistic terms denoting spatial relations that hold between the objects. Though progress has been made in the understanding and modelling of many individual relations, a better understanding of how human subjects use spatial relations together in natural language to is required. This paper outlines t...

In recent years, formalization and reasoning of topological relations have become a hot topic as a means to generate knowledge about the relations between spatial objects at the conceptual and geometrical levels. These mechanisms have been widely used in spatial data query, spatial data mining, evaluation of equivalence and similarity in a spatial scene, as well as for consistency assessment of...

Although it is natural to suppose that visual mental imagery is important in human deductive reasoning, the evidence is equivocal. This article argues that reasoning studies have not distinguished between ease of visualization and ease of constructing spatial models. Rating studies show that these factors can be separated. Their results yielded four sorts of relations: (1) visuospatial relation...

Our work is concerned with the design of a knowledge-based system for recognizing agricultural landscape models on land-use maps. Landscape models are defined as sets of spatial structures and spatial relations. This paper focuses on the representation of topological relations inside an object-based representation system. In this system, relations are represented by objects with their own prope...