Matching geo-spatial information by qualitative spatial relations

Abstract

Current Geographic Information Systems (GISs) do not adequately allow users to query spatial databases by means of qualitative terms like left, near, or above. Hence, we propose a matching framework that enables users to formulate configurations in a spatial query in an intuitive and qualitative manner. Spatial queries are translated into the formal query language Structured Query Language (SQL) which is used to query and retrieve results from spatial databases. In order to demonstrate the applicability of our approach we developed the Bremen Tourists Advisor with the matching framework as prominent component. Finally, we conduct experiments in the BTA context which exhibit the efficiency of our framework.