Domain and model driven geographic database design

Abstract

After many years of research in the field of conceptual modeling of geographic databases for Geographic Information Systems, experts have produced many different alternatives of conceptual data models from extensions of the Entity- Relationship model or of Unified Modeling Language (UML). However, the lack of consensus on which is the most suitable one for modeling applications in the geographical domain brings up a number of problems for field advancement, mainly problems of interoperability of database design and CASE tools. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach allows the development of systems from an abstract view until the corresponding implementation code that can be automatized by means of models transformation. A UML Profile is an extension mechanism of UML which allows a structured and precise extension of its constructors, being a good solution to standardize domain-specific modeling, as it uses the entire UML infrastructure. This chapter describes the use of MDA approach in the design of databases in geographical domain; using a UML Profile called GeoProfile aligned with international standards of ISO 191xx series. The chapter also shows that with the automatic transformation of models it is possible to achieve the generation of scripts for spatial databases from a conceptual data schema in a high level of abstraction.