Exact Computational Methods for Calculating Distances Between Objects in a Cartographic Database
Atsuyuki Okabe, Harvey J. Miller · Cartography and Geographic Information Systems · 1996
Most existing spatial analytic techniques use a simplified, point-based representation of spatial objects. This facilitates tractability of the standard computational procedures for many spatial measures, for example, distances between spatial objects. The increasing spatial data handling and manipulation capabilities of geographic information systems (GIS), however, allow a re-examination of fundamental representations and measures in spatial analysis. This article develops exact computational procedures for calculating the average, minimum, and maximum distances between pairings of the three geometric primitives (points, lines, and polygons) when these objects are stored in the vector GIS data model. These procedures are “exact” in the sense that they are completely accurate, subject to the database representation. This article also provides example results from average distance calculations for a generic spatial database.