Incorporating semantics into GIS applications

Abstract

An approach focused on incorporating semantic content into Geographic Information Systems is proposed. Our methodology is based on a conceptualization of a geospatial domain. The concepts are extracted automatically by analyzing the properties of geospatial objects (in this paper we are primarily focusing on geometrical and topological properties). The concepts are stored in the spatial database to support subsequent processing. The conceptualization of geometric properties is based on measures of geospatial objects. The measurement results obtained by the measurements are classified to obtain representative clusters of values in order to describe these properties. The values are used to define which concept better represents the properties of each object. The conceptualization of topological relations (special case of topological properties) is used to analyze and represent the topology in two levels: intrinsic and extrinsic. The use of semantics is fruitful in problems traditionally treated by numerical approaches. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.