An Object-Oriented Approach for Modeling Discrete Spatio-Temporal Databases

摘要

Spatio-Temporal databases became a must for many Geographical Information Systems where applications in these systems are not only interested in current values but also past, present and sometimes future values as well. This made the interest in finding efficient models for them higher and increased the work in the area. A lot of models were proposed for representing spatio-temporal databases as well as predicates and operations that can be applied on them. This paper offers an object-oriented approach based on "Composition" or "Has a" relation to model such databases where geometrical objects are attached to time to form a spatio-temporal object. The model is most suitable for objects or geometries in space that change discretely with time, however the idea can also be used to represent other spatio-temporal databases like moving object or combination of moving objects and geometries. The idea of the model is based on parts of ideas in two independent models. The first is a model offered by Tansel for representing temporal elements and the second one is used in ROSE Algebra that proposes data types, predicates and operations for spatial databases.