Manipulating Interpolated Data is Easier than You Thought
Stéphane Grumbach, Philippe Rigaux, Luc Segoufin · 2000
Data defined by interpolation is frequently found in new applications involving geographical entities, moving objects, or spatiotemporal data. These data lead to potentially infinite collections of items, (e.g., the elevation of any point in a map), whose definitions are based on the association of a collection of samples with an interpolation function. The naive manipulation of the data through direct access to both the samples and the interpolation functions leads to cumbersome or inaccurate queries. It is desirable to hide the samples and the interpolation functions from the logical level, while their manipulation is performed automatically. We propose to model such data using infinite relations (e.g., the map with elevation yields an infinite ternary relation) which can be manipulated through standard relational query languages (e.g., SQL), with no mention of the interpolated definition. The clear separation between logical and physical levels ensures the accu...