Requirements, definitions and notations for spatiotemporal application environments

Abstract

Modeling spatiotemporal applications is a complex task involving intricate issues, such as the representation of objects' position in time, and spatial attributes that change values depending on specific locations in time periods. Due to this complexity, the analysis of users' requirements-as the first phase of an application development methodology-is often neglected, focusing, mainly, on physical design aspects. In this paper, we address the set of spatial, temporal and spatiotemporal concepts as they are drawn from users' needs. The goal is to support the developer's better understanding about spatiotemporal applications, by providing the concepts and the notations needed in such environments; these concepts will, later, be translated into specific constructs and implementation issues. More specifically, space, spatial objects, spatial attributes, fields, time and models of time are presented and then combined to accommodate spatiotemporal peculiarities, resulting into the new, spatiotemporal, concepts of snapshots, clianges, and versions of objects and maps, motion and phenomena. Examples taken from two real large-scale applications show the necessity and adequacy of the presented concepts. spatiotemporal requirements, space, spatial objects, spatial attributes, fields, time, models of time, snapshots, changes, versions of objects and maps, phenomena.