Temporal Three-Dimensional Ontology for Geographical Information Science (GIS)—A Review

Uznir Ujang, Alias Abdul Rahman

.
3D GIS Research Lab, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

DOI: 10.4236/jgis.2013.53030                

Abstract

While the use of three-dimensional (3D) geographical information system (GIS) is becoming in rapid development and being used in various fields such as urban and regional planning, disaster management and planning, mobile navigation and etc., commercial and open source GIS software packages tend to offer 3D-GIS functionalities for their products. On the basis, GIS analysis functions are to provide information with respect to geographical location and by having 3D spatial data as an input, it will give advantages in providing horizontal position information. However, to analyze moving objects (temporal) in 3D seems not an easy task and not fully supported by current GIS platform packages. Previously in two-dimensional (2D) GIS practice, main issue addressed by researchers in managing temporal spatial objects is GIS packages were designed based on hardware and software constraints whereby it should be based on the temporal spatial objects ontology. Nowadays, the trend of managing temporal 3D data is via 3D spatial simulation or animation. This approach will not in assistance for GIS users in conducting spatial queries. Without having a suitable ontology and valid topological data structure for temporal 3D data, it will cause repetitive of temporal data (redundancy) and complications in executing spatial analysis in 3D environment. Therefore this paper focuses on the ontology for managing moving 3D spatial objects (i.e. air pollution, flood). The characteristics of moving objects were reviewed thoroughly by categorizing it based on its different appearances. Moreover, existing methods in managing temporal database were addressed and discussed for its practicalities. Another important aspect in managing temporal 3D objects is the implementation of topological data structures for 3D spatial objects were reviewed. In the last section of this paper it summarized the issues and further ideas towards implementing and managing temporal 3D spatial objects in GIS based on the Geoinformation Ontology (GeO).

Keywords

Multidimensional GIS; Temporal GIS; Geoinformation Ontology; 3D GIS; 3D City Modeling

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	J. Behley and V. Steinhage, “Generation of 3D City Models Using Domain-Specific Information Fusion,” In: M. Fritz, B. Schiele and J. H. Piater, Eds., Computer Vision Systems Proceedings, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2009, pp. 164-173.
[2]	B. Jin and F. Bian, “Study on Visualization of 3D City Model Based on Grid Service,” Jisuanji Gongcheng/ Computer Engineering, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2006, pp. 217-235.
[3]	L. F. Liu and J. Y. Fang, “An Accelerated Approach to Create 3D Web Cities,” Ieee, New York, 2009.
[4]	M. Freitas, A. A. Sousa and A. Coelho, “Evaluation of Visualization Features in Three-Dimensional Location-Based Mobile Services,” Insticc-Inst Syst Technologies Information Control & Communication, Setubal, 2009.
[5]	Z. P. Zhang, J. T. Fang and R. H. Jing, “Interactive Visualisation of 3D City Models Based on Adaptive Streaming of 3D-GIS Data,” Ieee Computer Soc, Los Alamitos, 2009.
[6]	M. Over, A. Schilling, S. Neubauer and A. Zipf, “Generating Web-Based 3D City Models from OpenStreetMap: The Current Situation in Germany,” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, Vol. 34, No. 6, 2010, pp. 496-507. doi:10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2010.05.001
[7]	A. Toshev, P. Mordohai and B. Taskar, “Detecting and Parsing Architecture at City Scale from Range Data,” Proceedings of the Twenty-Third IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2010, San Francisco, 13-18 June 2010, pp. 398-405.
[8]	N. Andrienko, G. Andrienko and P. Gatalsky, “Exploratory Spatio-Temporal Visualization: An Analytical Review,” Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, Vol. 14, No. 6, 2003, pp. 503-541. doi:10.1016/S1045-926X(03)00046-6
[9]	M. Erwig, R. Hartmut, M. Schneider and M. Vazirgiannis, “Spatio-Temporal Data Types: An Approach to Modeling and Querying Moving Objects in Databases,” GeoInformatica, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1999, pp. 269-296. doi:10.1023/A:1009805532638
[10]	J. A. Entwistle, K. J. W. McCaffrey and P. W. Abrahams, “Three-Dimensional (3D) Visualisation: The Application of Terrestrial Laser Scanning in the Investigation of Historical Scottish Farming Townships,” Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2009, pp. 860-866. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2008.11.018
[11]	J. O. Lee, G. C. Yi, Y. S. Kim and K. J. We, “3D Wetlands Classification Mapping of Eulsukdo Area Using LiDAR Data,” Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying Geodesy Photogrammetry and Cartography, Vol. 27, No. 6, 2009, pp. 639-647.
[12]	E. Ayhan, O. Erden and E. Gormus, “Three Dimensional Monitoring of Urban Development by Means of Ortho-Rectified Aerial Photographs and High-Resolution Satellite Images,” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Vol. 147, No. 1-3, 2008, pp. 413-421. doi:10.1007/s10661-007-0129-x
[13]	Z. Hong, N. Cong, L. Zhang and B. Ai, “3D Monitoring of Ice-Snow in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau—A Case of Geladandong,” Second International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes, Chengdu, 9 October 2009, pp. 1-8.
[14]	S. Nadi and R. D. Mahmoud, “Spatio-Temporal Modeling of Dynamic Phenomena in GIS,” ScanGIS’2003—Proceedings of the 9th Scandinavian Research Conference on Geographical Information Science, Espoo, 4-6 June 2003, pp. 302-313.
[15]	M. F. Goodchild, M. Yuan and T. J. Cova, “Towards a General Theory of Geographic Representation in GIS,” International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2007, pp. 239-260.
[16]	M. A. Mostafavi, L. H. Beni and K. Hins-Mallet, “Representing Dynamic Spatial Processes Using Voronoi Diagrams: Recent Developments,” Proceedings of the 2009 Sixth International Symposium on Voronoi Diagrams, Copenhagen, 23-26 June 2009, pp. 109-117.
[17]	W. Acevedo and P. Masuoka, “Time-Series Animation Techniques for Visualizing Urban Growth,” Computers & Geosciences, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1997, pp. 423-435. doi:10.1016/S0098-3004(97)00006-X
[18]	S. Nadi and M. R. Delavar, “Toward a General Spatio-Temporal Database Structure for GIS Applications,” International Symposium on Spatio-Temporal Modeling, Spatial Reasoning, Analysis, Data Mining and Data Fusion, Peking University, Beijing, 2005, pp. 1-3.
[19]	W.-J. Gao, J.-X. Zhang, Q. Yan and L. Pang, “Study on Spatio-Temporal Data Model and Visualization Technique,” International Symposium on Spatio-temporal Modeling, Spatial Reasoning, Analysis, Data Mining and Data Fusion (ISPRS), Peking University, Beijing, 2005, pp. 1-2.
[20]	R. N. Celik, N. N. Ulugtekin and C. Güney, “4D Geo-Referenced Database Approach for GIS,” FIG Working Week 2004, Athens, 22-27 May 2004, pp. 1-8.
[21]	P.-P. Du, W.-P. Li, S.-X. Sang, L.-X. Wang and X.-Z. Zhou, “Application of 3D Visualization Concept Layer Model for Coal-Bed Methane Index System,” Procedia Earth and Planetary Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009, pp. 977-981. doi:10.1016/j.proeps.2009.09.151
[22]	H. Qu, J. Li and M. Pan, “Three-Dimensional Urban Geological Modeling and Its Applications,” 18th International Conference on Geoinformatics, Beijing, 18-20 June, 2010, pp. 1-6.
[23]	Z. Xu, X. F. Wu, G. Zhu and H. Yan, “3D Modelling of Groundwater Based on Volume Visualization Technology,” In X. Tang, Y. Liu, J. Zhang and W. Kainz, Eds., Advances in Spatio-Temporal Analysis, Taylor & Francis Group, 2008, pp. 163-168.
[24]	X. Liu, W. Liu and J. Hu, “Analysis and Dynamic Simulation of Urban Rainstorm Waterlogging,” Sixth International Symposium on Digital Earth: Data Processing and Applications, Beijing, 9-12 September 2009, 7 pp.
[25]	A. Abdul-Rahman and M. Pilouk, “Spatial Data Modelling for 3D GIS,” Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008.
[26]	C. M. Gold, “Data Structures for Dynamic and Multidimensional GIS,” 4th ISPRS Workshop on Dynamic and Multi-Dimensional GIS, Pontypridd, 5-8 September 2005, pp. 36-41.
[27]	T. J. Cova, “Dynamic GIS: In Search of the “Killer App,” 2006. http://ncg.nuim.ie/content/events/posters/cova-ngc-2006.pdf
[28]	N. Kayhko, N. Fagerholm, B. S. Asseid and A. J. Mzee, “Dynamic Land Use and Land Cover Changes and Their Effect on Forest Resources in a Coastal Village of Matemwe, Zanzibar, Tanzania,” Land Use Policy, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2011, pp. 26-37. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2010.04.006
[29]	J. Vince, “Geometry for Computer Graphics: Formulae, Examples and Proofs,” Springer, 2004.
[30]	I. O. f. S. ISO, “ISO/TC 211 Geographic Information/ Geomatics,” International Organization for Standardization, Switzerland, 2009, pp. 1-98.
[31]	A. Stefanidis, K. Eickhorst, P. Agouris and P. Partsinevelos, “Modeling and Comparing Change Using Spatiotemporal Helixes,” Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Symposium on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, New Orleans, 7-8 November 2003, pp. 86-93.
[32]	G. Fu, C. Jones and A. Abdelmoty, “Building a Geographical Ontology for Intelligent Spatial Search on the Web,” Proceedings of IASTED International Conference on Databases and Applications, Innsbruck, 14-16 February, 2005, pp. 167-172.
[33]	P. Grenon and B. Smith, “SNAP and SPAN: Towards Dynamic Spatial Ontology,” Spatial Cognition & Computation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2004, pp. 69-104.
[34]	I. Mohamad Yusoff, M. Uznir Ujang and A. Abdul Rahman, “3D Volumetric Soft Geo-Objects for Dynamic Urban Runoff Modeling,” In: T. Neutens and P. Maeyer, Eds., Developments in 3D Geo-Information Sciences, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010, pp. 200-219.
[35]	K. Ramamritham, S. H. Son and L. C. DiPippo, “Real-Time Databases and Data Services,” Real-Time Systems, Vol. 28, No. 2-3, 2004, pp. 179-215. doi:10.1023/B:TIME.0000045317.37980.a5
[36]	Y. Wu, S. Jajodia and X. Wang, “Temporal Database Bibliography Update,” Temporal Databases: Research and Practice, Vol. 1399, No. 1, 1998, pp. 338-366.
[37]	N. Edelweiss, J. de Oliveira and B. Pernici, “An Object-Oriented Approach to a Temporal Query Language,” Database and Expert Systems Applications, Vol. 856, No. 1, 1994, pp. 225-235. doi:10.1007/3-540-58435-8_187
[38]	C. S. Jensen and R. T. Snodgrass, “Temporal Projection,” Encyclopedia of Database Systems, 2009, pp. 3008-3008.
[39]	K. Torp, C. S. Jensen and R. T. Snodgrass, “Effective Timestamping in Databases,” The VLDB Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3-4, 2000, pp. 267-288. doi:10.1007/s007780050008
[40]	H. Darwen, “Valid Time and Transaction Time Proposals: Language Design Aspects,” Temporal Databases: Research and Practice, Vol. 1399, No. 1, 1998, pp. 195-210.
[41]	M. A. Mostafavi, L. H. Beni and M. Gavrilova, “3D Dynamic Scene Surveillance and Management Using a 3D Kinetic Spatial Data Structure,” The International Conference on Advanced Geographic Information Systems & Web Services, GEOWS 2009, Cancun, 1-7 February 2009, pp. 45-53.
[42]	H. Ledoux, “The Kinetic 3D Voronoi Diagram: A Tool for Simulating Environmental Processes,” In: P. Oosterom, S. Zlatanova, F. Penninga and E. M. Fendel, Eds., Advances in 3D Geoinformation Systems, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 361-380.
[43]	P. Boguslawski, C. M. Gold and H. Ledoux, “Modelling and Analysing 3D Buildings with a Primal/Dual Data Structure,” ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Vol. 66, No. 2, 2011, pp. 188-197. doi:10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2010.11.003