Design of a knowledge based geographic information system

Abstract

A GIS has been designed with limited functionalities but with a novel approach in its design The spatial data model adopted in the design of KBGIS is the unlinked vector model Each map entity is encoded separately in vector form without referencing newlineany of its neighbouring entities Spatial relations in other words are not encoded This newlineapproach is adequate for routine analysis of geographic data represented on a planar map and their display Even though spatial relations are not encoded newlineexplicitly they can be extracted through the specially designed queries newlineThis work was undertaken as an experiment to study the feasibility of developing a newlineGIS using a knowledge base in place of a relational database The source of input spatial newlinedata was accurate sheet maps that were manually digitised Each identifiable geographic newlineprimitive was represented as a distinct object with its spatial properties and attributes newlinedefined Composite spatial objects made up of primitive objects were formulated based newlineon production rules defining such compositions The facts and rules were then organised newlineinto a production system using OPS5 newline newline newline