GeoOOA: object-oriented analysis for geographic information systems

Abstract

We stress the need for a domain-tailored requirements engineering method in the development of GIS applications. To this end, we discuss three GIS application scenarios, the so-called topological scenario, the network scenario, and the (spatio-) temporal scenario, frequently encountered in real life projects. Our investigations reveal that conventional RE-methods like, for example, Coad/Yourdon's Object-Oriented Analysis (OOA) cannot model GIS-specific requirements appropriately. To overcome the deficiencies of conventional OOA we introduce GeoOOA which complements OOA by suitable domain-tailored primitives and allows for a more adequate treatment of GIS-specific requirements. We provide GeoOOA models of a broadcasting corporation, an electric power supply system and a land registry as first validation steps for the usefulness of GeoOOA.