The dynamic Geographic Knowledge Based Information Systems project

Frans Coenen

Department of Conmputer Science, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX

Thursday 8 January 2004


1. Overview

The dGKBIS project (GR/J/14615) was an EPSRC funded research project to investigate the application of spatial reasoning techniques to GIS applications - particularly Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) applications. The aim was to identify a suitable representation that will allow spatial reasoning techniques to be applied to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data while at the same time supporting all the functionality associated with traditional GIS systems.

The project started in October 1994 and was successfully completed in April 1997. Principal results include the development of a spatial representation based on a tesseral approach and the SPARTA (SPAtial Reasoning using Tesseral Addressing) spatial reasoning system. The tesseral representation had the effect of linearising space while at the same time supporting the description of multi-dimensional objects and the relationships that can exist between those objects (in any direction and through any number of dimensions). This representation was incorporated into the SPARTA system which in turn was applied to a number of application scenarios.

The project was awarded top ratings by the EPSRC: ALPHA 5 for scientific and technologocal merit, and ALPHA 5 for management and use of resources.

Currently work is in progress which seeks to extend the research base established by the dGKBIS project.


2. The Research Team

  1. Bridget Beattie
  2. Trevor Bench-Capon
  3. Frans Coenen
  4. Bernard Diaz (Diz)
  5. Michael Shave

3. Published papers

3.1 Refereed journals

  1. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Diaz, B.M., Bench-Capon, T.J.M. and Shave, M.J.R (1996). Temporal Reasoning using Tesseral Addressing: Towards an Intelligent Environmental Impact Assessment System. Journal of Knowledge-Based Systems, Vol 9, No 5, pp287-300.
  2. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Shave, M.J.R, Bench-Capon, T.J.M. and Diaz, B.M. (1998). Spatial Reasoning Using The Quad-Tesseral Representation. Artificial Intelligence Review, Vol 12, pp321-343.

3.2 Refereed conference papers

  1. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Diaz, B.M., Bench-Capon, T.J.M. and Shave, M.J.R. (1994). A Temporal Calculus for GIS using Tesseral Addressing. In Bramer, M.A. and Macintosh, A.L. (Eds), Research and Development in Expert Systems XI, Proceedings of ES'94, pp261-273.
  2. Beattie, B., Coenen, F.P., Bench-Capon, T.J.M., Diaz, B.M. and Shave, M.J.R. (1995). Spatial Reasoning for GIS using a Tesseral Data Representation. In Revell, N. and Tjoa, A.M. (Eds), Database and Expert Systems Applications, (Proceedings DEXA'95), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 978, Springer Verlag, pp207-216.
  3. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Bench-Capon, T.J.M., Shave, M.J.R and Diaz, B.M. (1995). Spatial Reasoning for Timetabling: The TIMETABLER system. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling (ICPTAT'95), Napier University, Edinburgh, pp57-68.
  4. Beattie, B., Coenen, F.P., Hough, A., Bench-Capon, T.J.M., Diaz, B.M. and Shave, M.J.R. (1996). Spatial Reasoning for Environmental Impact Assessment. Third International Conference on GIS and Environmental Modelling, Santa Barbara: National Centre for Geographic Information and Analysis, WWW and CD.
  5. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Bench-Capon, T.J.M., Shave, M.J.R and Diaz, B.M. (1996). An Ontology for Linear Spatial Reasoning. In Wagner, R.R. and Thoma, H. (Eds), Database and Expert Systems Applications, (Proceedings DEXA'96), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1134, Springer Verlag, pp718-727.
  6. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Bench-Capon, T.J.M, Diaz, B.M. and Shave. M.J.R. (1996). Spatial Reasoning for Geographic Information Systems. Proceedings 1st International Conference on GeoComputation, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Vol 1, pp121-131.
  7. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Bench-Capon, T.J.M, Diaz, B.M. and Shave. M.J.R. (1997). A tesseral Approach to N-Dimensional Spatial Reasoning. In Hameurlain, A. and Tjoa, A.M. (Eds), Database and Expert Systems Applications, (Proceedings DEXA'97), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1308, Springer Verlag, pp633-642.
  8. Coenen, F.P., Diaz, B.M., Shave. M.J.R., Bench-Capon, T.J.M. and Beattie, B. (1997). A Tesseral Approach to Multi-Dimensional Reasoning. Proceedings of the Irish Machine Visuion and Image Processing Conference (IMVIP-97), University of Ulster, Magee College, N. Ireland, pp88-95.
  9. Coenen, F.P., Diaz, B.M., Shave. M.J.R., Beattie, B. and Bench-Capon, T.J.M. (1997). N-Dimensional Reasoning Using a Tesseral Representation. In Hunt, J. and Miles, R. (Eds.), Research and Development in Expert Systems XIV, proceedings of ES'97, SGES publications, ISBN 1 899621 20 2, pp97-108.
  10. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Bench-Capon, T.J.M., Diaz, B.M. and Shave. M.J.R. (1998). Spatio-Temporal Reasoning Using A Multi-Dimensional Tesseral Representation. Proceedings ECAI'98, John Wiley & Sons, pp140-144. (Old version)

3.4 Working papers and internal reports

  1. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Diaz, B., Bench-Capon, T.J.M. and Shave, M.J.R (1994). Two Dimensional Spatial Reasoning for GIS using Tesseral Addressing. Dept of Computer Science, The University of Liverpool, dGKBIS working paper.
  2. Coenen, F.P. and Beattie, B. (1995). An Addressing System to Support Spatial reasoning for GIS. Dept of Computer Science, The University of Liverpool, dGKBIS working paper.
  3. Coenen, F.P. (1996). A Spatial Probelm. Dept of Computer Science, The University of Liverpool, dGKBIS working paper.
  4. Coenen, F.P., Beattie, B., Bench-Capon, T.J.M., Diaz, B.M. and Shave, M.J.R (1997). Tesseral Spatio-temporal Reasoning fot Multi-dimensional data. Dept of Computer Science, The University of Liverpool, dGKBIS working paper.
  5. Coenen, F.P. (1998). A Visualisation Tool for 3-Dimensional Tesserally represented Data. Dept of Computer Science, The University of Liverpool, dGKBIS working paper.

3.3 Miscellaneous

  1. Diaz, B.M., Beattie, B.J.H, Coenen, F.P., Shave, M,J.R and Bench-Capon, T.J.M (1994). Expert Systems Within EIA. EIA Newsletter, No 9, EIA Center, Dept. of Planning and Landscape, University of Manchester, p 21.
  2. Diaz B.M., Beattie B.J.H., Coenen F.P., Shave M.J.R. and Bench-Capon T.J. (1996). Spatial and temporal linearisation: issues in optimising dGKBIS (dynamic Geographic Knowledge Based Information Systems). Presented at the INFORMS-96 (Institute of Operations Research and Management Science) International Conference, Washington DC, May 5-8 1996.

4. Project Notes

A number of notes and documents associated with the project are available for local access only.

Created and maintained by Frans Coenen. Last updated 07 January 2008