An intelligent, object-oriented geographical information system

Abstract

The authors report a novel interface to a spatial analysis system which allows the underlying geographical domain to be represented using a high-level, feature-or object-oriented model. The system incorporates an intelligent, data-driven reporting technique which analyses the domain characteristics in order to highlight significant trends. A second novel feature is the use of data held in our extended data model for the purpose of query optimization. The interface is based on object-oriented techniques, which have been enhanced to capture contextual data and knowledge, including general patterns of data behaviour, general geographical knowledge and database domain-specific characteristics. A geographical information system can offer more flexibility when it can handle searches in both a spatial and object-centred way. Our current work is concerned with increasing the functionality and efficiency of the object-centred approach, and hence increasing the effectiveness of geographical information systems as an aid to analysis and decision-making, especially where very large volumes of data are involved.