A qualitative spatio-temporal framework based on point algebra

Abstract

Knowledge Representation and Reasoning has been quite successfull in dealing with the concepts of time and space separately. However, not much has been done in designing qualitative spatiotemporal representation formalisms, let alone reasoning systems for that formalisms. We introduce a qualitative constraint-based spatiotemporal framework using Point Algebra (PA), that allows for defining formalisms based on several qualitative spatial constraint languages, such as RCC-8, Cardinal Direction Algebra (CDA), and Rectangle Algebra (RA). We define the notion of a qualitative spatiotemporal constraint network (QSTCN) to capture such formalisms, where pairs of spatial networks are associated to every base relation of the underlying network of PA. Finally, we analyse the computational properties of our framework and provide algorithms for reasoning with the derived formalisms.