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Dynamic GIS

Abstract:

Traditional GIS has focused on static 2-D or polygon data structures for cartographic data, and grids or TINs for terrain. More recent versions have extended this somewhat, but, as far as we know with commercial products, the underlying structures remain at most 2.5-D and static. This chapter attempts to demonstrate, and illustrate with dynamic GIS prototype systems and applications, how the lowest level of spatial data storage and algorithms may be extended towards a fully dynamic or even kinetic GIS. If dynamic algorithms are added to GIS then further possibilities for various spatial data applications open up. Adding kinetic algorithms to GIS allows the manipulation of moving points within the spatial data structure, opening up opportunities for managing continuous change over time, collision detection, fluid flow and continuous line-drawing within a topologically valid space. The data structure that allows the implementation of dynamic and kinetic algorithms in GIS while maintaining the topology of the spatial objects is based on the Voronoi diagram and its dual Delaunay Triangulation. Many traditional operations in GIS are greatly simplified by this proximal spatial model, and several are demonstrated in this paper. The Voronoi data structure and its dual, the Delaunay triangulation, may also be modified incrementally or kinetically, and we demonstrate with the dynamic 3-D Voronoi diagram the possibilities of applications in oceanography, geology and similar disciplines normally out of reach of the static 2-D GIS. © 2008 Taylor & Francis Group.