Towards a General Field model and its order in GIS

Abstract

Geospatial data modelling is dominated by the distinction between continuousfield and discrete-object conceptualizations. However, the boundary between them is not always clear, and the field view is more fundamental in some respects than the object view. By viewing a set of objects as an object field and unifying it with conventional field models, a new concept, the General Field (G-Field) model, is proposed. In this paper, the properties of G-Field models, including domain, range, and categorization, are discussed. As a summary, a descriptive framework for G-Field models is proposed. Then, some common geospatial operations in geographic information systems are reconsidered from the G-Field perspective. The geospatial operations are classified into order-increasing operations and non-order-increasing operations, depending on changes induced in the G-Field's order. Generally, the order can be viewed as an indicator of the level of information extraction of geospatial data. It is thus possible to integrate the concept of order with a geo-workflow management system to support geographic semantics.

Hierarchical profiling of geoprocessing services

“…It could be paraphrased as cognitive heterogeneity for geographic data models and refers to the use of different conceptual data models for the same entities. A typical example is the object versus field debate (Couclelis, 1992;Kuhn, 2012;Liu et al, 2008) that contrasts the two opposing modelling approaches for geographic phenomena. At a technical level, type heterogeneity may also occur due to the multitude of data encodings spatial data and data schemas (e.g.…”

A vector field model to handle the displacement of multiple conflicts in building generalization

“…In the field view, the space is considered to be continuous, and every location in the space is associated with a set of properties (Goodchild 1992). Several attempts were later made to integrate the two views, as some phenomena are better modeled with a hybrid approach (Galton 2001, Cova and Goodchild 2002, Goodchild et al 2007, Liu et al 2008.…”

Interpreting spatial language in image captions

“…Couclelis (1992); Goodchild (1992); Liu et al (2008)) for representing vague phenomena. Conceptually the vague-field is a two-dimensional, unbounded, continuous, scalar field defined on a projected, euclidean coordinate system 8 , with the field's values in the range [0, 1].…”

“…To avoid this difficulty the vague data can be represented using a field model, which maps coordinates to values (see Liu et al (2008); Laurini and Pariente (1996)). Fields represent geographical knowledge as a continuum of values, contrasting with object-based representations that split geographic space up into a set of more or less clearly delineated objects (see Couclelis (1992); Goodchild (1992) Erwig and Schneider (1997)) and also cases where one of the two is more suited.…”