Issue 4: How to model extended topological operators

ID: 
4
Starting Date: 
2001-07-05
Working Group: 
1
Status: 
Done
Closing Date: 
2001-10-18
Background: 

How to model continuity, extended topological operators (in particular temporal and spatial).

Current Proposal: 

In scope: 
Check data structures, like OPEN GIS as a source to identify relevant relationships.

A specific proposal:

Here a proposal to model spatiotemporal relationships:

All temporal relationships between Temporal Entities are defined through the relationships of their associated time-spans via Allen operators:
"before", "after", "equal", "meets", "met_by", "overlaps", "overlapped_by", "during", "includes", "starts","started-by", "finishes", "finished-by".
Definitions see e.g. :
Bernhard Nebel, Hans-Juergen Buerckert, "Reasoning about Temporal Relations: A Maximal Tractable Subclass of Allen's Interval Algebra", in Proc.AAAI-94,p.356-361.Seattle,WA,August 1994.

"Implementing a Temporal Datatype".,

For spatial relationships:

Place - "borders with: Place", "overlaps with: Place".

For spatiotemporal relationships:

Period - "overlaps with: Period", "falls within : Period" (existing)

A scope note must distinguish between the part-of
relationship of Period (consists of) and the spatiotemporal "falls within"

Outcome: 
All temporal relationships between temporal entities are defined through a set of 7 properties that are equal to the Allen Operators:
 
E2  Temporal Entity:
 
before (after) :                                             E2 Temporal Entity 
meets in time (met-by in time):                  E2 Temporal Entity 
overlaps in time (overlapped-by in time):   E2 Temporal Entity 
during (includes in time):                            E2 Temporal Entity
starts (started-by):                                      E2 Temporal Entity
finishes (finished-by):                                 E2 Temporal Entity 
equal in time:                                              E2 Temporal Entity
 
For spatial relationships: 
     E53 Place - "borders with: E53 Place", "overlaps with: E53 Place".
 
 
Paris 18/10/2001.
 
For spatiotemporal relationships: issue left open (69)