A spatio‐temporal indexing structure for efficient retrieval and manipulation of discretely changing spatial data
Hatem F. Halaoui · Journal of Spatial Science · 2008
Most Geographical features, whether artificial or natural, change with time. The rate of change differs between features, some change continuously, others rapidly and many others slowly. A lot of examples can be given by looking at any land, city or area. New buildings are built, new roads and highways are constructed, new shapes of surfaces, and many other new constructions are added or updated by people or nature. Storing, retrieving and manipulating geographical information is not as simple as regular information and it is even more complicated when the time dimension is involved. The main goal of this study is to provide an efficient structure to store, index and retrieve spatio‐temporal data. For this reason, an efficient approach for indexing and retrieving discreetly changing spatio‐temporal data is offered. The approach is an extension of previous work done in the area. The previous work includes two main structures: CTI (Changes Temporal Index) and AIRSTD (An Approach for Indexing and Retrieving Spatio‐Temporal Data). The proposal concentrates on two main objectives: (1) Provide indexing structures for spatio‐temporal data and (2) provide efficient algorithms to deal with these structures. Finally, a discussion of some experimental results and a comparison between the proposed approach and other applied approaches in the area is presented.