A Formalization of Metaphors and Image-Schemas in User Interfaces

Abstract

The first paper, entitled "Deficiencies of SQL as a GIS Query Language", argues that SQL and various extended versions of it are not adequate geographic query languages. They lack the integration of graphical display in retrieval and presentation of query results and do not support the set operations necessary for spatial query. In the second paper, "A Formalization of Metaphors and Image-Schemas in User Interfaces", an algebraic approach to formalization of interface metaphors is presented as a step toward the design of metaphor-based interfaces. This approach to mapping source to target domains is demonstrated by analyzing the metaphorical and image-schematic bases the "zoom" function. The third paper, "Matching Representations of Geographic Locations", sets out fundamental differences in the representations of geographic space and spatial relations in minds, written location descriptions, and conventional cartographic data sets, and proposes a geographic data structure which might facilitate establishing correspondence between locations in each representation. Together, these papers range across theoretical and practical concerns in incorporating "spatial sense" in GIS.This report presents work that has been supported by a grants from the National Science Foundation (SES-88-10917), Digital Equipment Corporation (grant No. TP765536), Intergraph Corporation, and a NATO Advanced Study Institute Grant The support of these organizations is gratefully acknowledged. DEFICIENCIES OF SQL AS A GIS QUERY LANGUAGE 1 MAX J. EGENHOFER National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis and Department of Surveying Engineering University of MaineOrono, ME 04469, U.S.A. MAX@MECAN1.bitnet ABSTRACT. Numerous proposals have been made to extend the relational database query language SQL to serve as a spatial query language and currently efforts are under way to establish a standardized spatial SQL. Here it is argued that the SQL framework is inappropriate for an interactivespatial query language and an extended spatial SQL is at best a short-term solution. The serious deficiencies of any spatial SQL are divided into two groups:• the severe difficulties to incorporate necessary spatial concepts into SQL such as graphical display and its specification and• the lack of power within the relational framework with missing support for complex objects, object identity, meta queries, and non-first-order logic ---all crucial when dealing with spatial data. IntroductionThe Structured Query Language SQL is enjoying much popularity in the database world and has become the standard for relational database management systems (ANSI 1986). Although originally designed as a high-level interface to relational database management systems (Chamberlin et al. 1976) to manipulate relational tables (Codd 1970), SQL is sometimes even considered as intergalactic dataspeak (Stonebraker et al. 1990) for many other applications. Frequently, the underlying power of the relational calculus has proven to be insufficient and numerous extended SQLs have been p...

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