A framework for Process Geographical Information System
Zhou Chenghu · Geographical Research · 2006
With the powerful technologies to acquire geographical data or its time-series,geographical research focuses on geographical process or dynamic phenomena instead of static geographical structure.At the same time,as a general powerful method to store,manage,distribute,analyze,display and apply the data with location information or as a powerful tool to analyze the spatial data,Geographical Information System(GIS) has attracted more and more attention of researchers in other fields,such as oceanography or meteorology,in which the dynamic phenomenon is the core research object.Some study applications on the dynamic phenomena were based on GIS platforms in market.However these presenting GIS platforms are all developed from terrestrial applications which lay stress on the status of space.Once GIS into the dynamic fields,it is necessary to develop a new type of theory or technology of GIS according to the process characteristics.That means the GIS theory or technology will develop based on the dynamic process instead of the static space.In order to overcome some disadvantages of traditional GIS,the presentation promotes the concept of Process Geographical Information System(PGIS) and describes its basic theoretical framework.This paper analyzes the definition of the space-time,and spatiotemporal process in the PGIS.Based on these definitions,the space base frame,the logic structure and the process warehouse in PGIS are constructed.Furthermore,it defines the spatiotemporal functions of PGIS,such as process management,process visualization,spatiotemporal navigation with the interpolation and aggregation in the space-time,process characterization,process objectization,process logic reasoning,and process symbolization.With the theory above,a new type of GIS based on marine process has been set up as MaXplorer.