A graph grammar approach to geographical databases

摘要

This paper treats the modeling of an important class of databases, i.e. geographical databases, with emphasis on both structural (data definition) and behavioral (data manipulation) aspects. Geometric objects such as polygons, line segments, and points may have different relations among each other (such as order, adjacency, connectivity) and can be represented in a uniform spatial data structure (structure graph). The dynamic behavior is defined by a finite set of consistency-preserving state transitions (productions) where coincidence problems as well as topological properties have to be solved. Moreover, the graph grammar approach can be used to study the synchronization of several concurrent productions (Church-Rosser properties) and offers a framework for implementing a geographical database.