Spatio-temporal reasoning with qualitative and quantitative information about constraints and approximations

Abstract

This paper constructs a computational model for spatio-temporal constraint reasoning and approximate measuring by quantitative and qualitative methods. We develop a spatio-temporal algebra system as an efficient computational model to unify time-varying events and spatial-varying objects. Several computation algorithms and operations for dealing with spatio-temporal constraints are proposed. The combined temporal/spatial models are generalized by composing point and interval algebra with qualitative and quantitative functions. The time interval relations can be encoded and represented as a neat graphical representation. The interval relational-distances were derived for comparing similarity between two intervals relations. Base on the temporal models and the stage graph with relational-distances, the algorithms are extended to compute spatial relations between objects in space. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.