%0 Journal Article 
%A Escobar Martínez, Francisco Javier
%A McBride, Simon
%A Ma, Denis
%T Management and visualization of spatiotemporal information in GIS
%D 2002
%U http://hdl.handle.net/10017/6820
%X Although Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been recognised as the most
advanced technology for the management of geospatial information, they are still
unable to efficiently manage the temporal dimension. Originally this problem affeeted only the study and analysis of highly dynamic phenomena. Today's expansion of GIS technology, the ease to acquire and store geospatial data and the increased capacity of computing technologies to managc large amounl of data have contributed lo the propagation of this problem across the whole geospatial seclor.
The extended use of GIS in decision-making processes is increasing the demand for
tools able to manage and 10 analyse dynamic geospatial phenomena where the
temporal dimension is crucial. The only temporal model available in commercial
GIS packages is based on discretisation of temporal data. Changes are represented as
a succession of snapshots. The dynamics and what happens between those stages are
not registered. In addition, this approach presents severe problems due to
unavoidable multiplication of data volume, abundant redundancies, loss in query
efficiency and the impossibility of knowing when the exact timing of changes occurs.
Since the late 1980s and particularly in the 1990s, researching the temporal changes
and the conceptual and technological options available has been undertaken by the
GIS and DBMS sectors. The primary objective of the research presented in this
paper is the development of a model for the integration of temporal data with GIS.
The method adopted to achieve this objective is based on the combination of Time
Geography principies, its graphic language and dynamic segmentation techniques
used in GIS. Past research has demonstrated that the difficulty to integrate time with
GIS has its origin in the continuous nature of time. Dynamic segmentation in GIS
network analysis has the potential to provide the means for a time-GIS integration in a continuous manner. Lifelines, one of the main Time geography's graphic language
elements, has been modelled as a set of network segments where the dynamics in
attribute information has been attached to different time segments rather than
distance segments (for exampIe Euclidean or cost-based) as normally occurs in
dynamic segmentation. This paper summarises initial findings of the project. These
outcomes have the potential to improve the way the geospatial sector currently
handles temporal information. However, the static nature of current GIS technology
impedes an appropriate visualisation of dynamic temporal phenomena. To this
effect, the paper also explores the possibilities offered by multimedia techniques as a complement to GIS capabilities.
%K GIS
%K Temporal GIS
%K Spatio-Temporal Querying
%K Time Geography
%K Dynamic Segmentation
%K Multimedia
%K Geografía
%K Geography
%~ Biblioteca Universidad de Alcala