On Managing Spatial Hypermedia with Document Stores

Abstract

In spatial hypertext, linking is implicit. Users can use spatial and visual attributes, such as proximity, shape, or color, to describe the information space. Spatial hypertext models are special. For example, they need a flexible handling of attributes. Using a relational database management system (DBMS) in the backend, leads to an impedance mismatch problem as spatial hypertext and relational database approaches build on different structural paradigms. In this paper, we introduce the spatial hypertext impedance mismatch and argue for a special structure store to avoid or, at least, reduce the introduced problem. Document stores appear to be an intuitive way or at least a good starting point for providing an intuitive way to store, retrieve, and manage spatial hypermedia structures. In this paper, we analyze document stores in more detail in order to estimate their suitability as spatial hypermedia structure store.