Raster space with relativity

• Published in: Kybernetes 2003-07, Vol.32 (5/6), p.629-639
• Main Authors: Li, Yongli, Li, Zhilin, Chen, Yong-qi, Li, Xiaoxia, Lin, Yi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Approximation concepts; Cybernetics; Geographic information systems; Geographical information systems
• ISSN: 0368-492X; 1758-7883
• DOI: 10.1108/03684920210443716

Practical needs in geographical information systems (GIS) have led to the investigation of formal, sound and computational methods for spatial analysis. Since models based on topology of R2 have a serious problem of incapability of being applied directly for practical computations, we have noticed that models developed on the raster space can overcome this problem. Because some models based on vector spaces have been effectively used in practical applications, we then introduce the idea of using the raster space as our platform to study spatial entities of vector spaces. In this paper, we use raster spaces to study not only morphological changes of spatial entities of vector spaces, but also equal relations and connectedness of spatial entities of vector spaces. Based on the discovery that all these concepts contain relativity, we then introduce several new concepts, such as observable equivalence, strong connectedness, and weak connectedness. Additionally, we present a possible method of employing raster spaces to study spatial relations of spatial entities of vector spaces. Since the traditional raster spaces could not be used directly, we first construct a new model, called pansystems model, for the concept of raster spaces, then develop a procedure to convert a representation of a spatial entity in vector spaces to that of the spatial entity in a raster space. Such conversions are called approximation mappings.