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A survey of qualitative spatial representations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2013

Juan Chen ,
Anthony G. Cohn ,
Dayou Liu ,
Shengsheng Wang ,
Jihong Ouyang  and
Qiangyuan Yu
Juan Chen
Affiliation:
College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: chenjuan@jlu.edu.cn Key Laboratory of Symbolic Computing and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: liudy@jlu.edu.cn, wss@jlu.edu.cn, ouyj@jlu.edu.cn, qiangyuan@jlu.edu.cn School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK; e-mail: a.g.cohn@leeds.ac.uk
Anthony G. Cohn
Affiliation:
School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK; e-mail: a.g.cohn@leeds.ac.uk
Dayou Liu
Affiliation:
College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: chenjuan@jlu.edu.cn Key Laboratory of Symbolic Computing and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: liudy@jlu.edu.cn, wss@jlu.edu.cn, ouyj@jlu.edu.cn, qiangyuan@jlu.edu.cn
Shengsheng Wang
Affiliation:
College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: chenjuan@jlu.edu.cn Key Laboratory of Symbolic Computing and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: liudy@jlu.edu.cn, wss@jlu.edu.cn, ouyj@jlu.edu.cn, qiangyuan@jlu.edu.cn
Jihong Ouyang
Affiliation:
College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: chenjuan@jlu.edu.cn Key Laboratory of Symbolic Computing and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: liudy@jlu.edu.cn, wss@jlu.edu.cn, ouyj@jlu.edu.cn, qiangyuan@jlu.edu.cn
Qiangyuan Yu
Affiliation:
College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: chenjuan@jlu.edu.cn Key Laboratory of Symbolic Computing and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; e-mail: liudy@jlu.edu.cn, wss@jlu.edu.cn, ouyj@jlu.edu.cn, qiangyuan@jlu.edu.cn
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Abstract

Representation and reasoning with qualitative spatial relations is an important problem in artificial intelligence and has wide applications in the fields of geographic information system, computer vision, autonomous robot navigation, natural language understanding, spatial databases and so on. The reasons for this interest in using qualitative spatial relations include cognitive comprehensibility, efficiency and computational facility. This paper summarizes progress in qualitative spatial representation by describing key calculi representing different types of spatial relationships. The paper concludes with a discussion of current research and glimpse of future work.

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The Knowledge Engineering Review , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 106 - 136
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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