Robert Laurini

Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction for Geographic Information Systems

Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) ; GIS ; cognition Reference Record created on 2005-06-20, modified on 2016-08-08

Spatial multi-database topological continuity and indexing: a step towards seamless GIS data interoperability

Robert LAURINI Laboratoire d’Ingenierie des Systemes d’Information Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I Institut National des Sciences Appliquees - Bât 404 F-69621 Villeurbanne - E-mail: Robert.Laurini@insa-lyon.fr Abstract The scope of this paper is to present some problems and solutions concerning the federation of several geographic databases, in the context of interoperability. When a multidatabase query is executed, it is important to route it only to sites which are likely to contribute to the answer, whatever the fragmentation could be, geographic, thematic or heterogeneous. Secondly, when the answer implies several spatial databases, it is important that not only boundary alignment is achieved, but also topological continuity. After having described several general problems and concepts about distributed spatial databases and their integration, structures for spatial indexing in multidatabase systems will be described, giving emphasis to local and global spatial indices. A r-tree-like-based structure is proposed for organising those global indices. But, geographic fragmentation presents the great disadvantages to artificially cut geographic objects, such as roads, rivers, etc. In other words, some objects, called fragmented objects, have the particularity to have several database identifiers (one per site) and a mechanism must be provided in order to re-construct those objects when necessary. In this paper, special tools must be presented in order to ensure continuity of fragmented objects, semantically (at the level of identifiers), topologically (at level of data structure) and geometrically (at level of coordinates, possibly with errors). In order to accelerate queries against fragmented objects, some adjacency tables must be constructed. Only once spatial continuity is ensured, truly seamless GIS data will exist on Internet.

Information Systems for Urban Planning : A Hypermedia Cooperative Approach

1. Systems Analysis of the Urban Planning Process 2. Data Acquisition in Urban Environment 3. Methodologies 4. Urban Data Modelling 5. Hypermaps 6. Visualisation 7. Groupware 8. Computer Architecture 9. Conclusions

Advances in Visual Information Systems

Keynote Paper.- Visual Information Retrieval - Future Directions and Grand Challenges.- Image and Video Retrieval.- Approximation-Based Keypoints in Colour Images - A Tool for Building and Searching Visual Databases.- A Knowledge Synthesizing Approach for Classification of Visual Information.- Image Similarity - From Fuzzy Sets to Color Image Applications.- A Semi-automatic Feature Selecting Method for Sports Video Highlight Annotation.- Face Image Retrieval System Using TFV and Combination of Subimages.- Near-Duplicate Detection Using a New Framework of Constructing Accurate Affine Invariant Regions.- Where Are Focused Places of a Photo?.- Region Based Image Retrieval Incorporated with Camera Metadata.- Empirical Investigations on Benchmark Tasks for Automatic Image Annotation.- Automatic Detection and Recognition of Players in Soccer Videos.- A Temporal and Visual Analysis-Based Approach to Commercial Detection in News Video.- Salient Region Filtering for Background Subtraction.- A Novel SVM-Based Method for Moving Video Objects Recognition.- Image Classification and Indexing by EM Based Multiple-Instance Learning.- Visual Biometrics.- Palm Vein Extraction and Matching for Personal Authentication.- A SVM Face Recognition Method Based on Optimized Gabor Features.- Palmprint Identification Using Pairwise Relative Angle and EMD.- Finding Lips in Unconstrained Imagery for Improved Automatic Speech Recognition.- Intelligent Visual Information Processing.- Feature Selection for Identifying Critical Variables of Principal Components Based on K-Nearest Neighbor Rule.- Denoising Saliency Map for Region of Interest Extraction.- Cumulative Global Distance for Dimension Reduction in Handwritten Digits Database.- A New Video Compression Algorithm for Very Low Bandwidth Using Curve Fitting Method.- The Influence of Perceived Quality by Adjusting Frames Per Second and Bits Per Frame Under the Limited Bandwidth.- An Evolutionary Approach to Inverse Gray Level Quantization.- Visual Data Mining.- Mining Large-Scale News Video Database Via Knowledge Visualization.- Visualization of the Critical Patterns of Missing Values in Classification Data.- Visualizing Unstructured Text Sequences Using Iterative Visual Clustering.- Enhanced Visual Separation of Clusters by M-Mapping to Facilitate Cluster Analysis.- Multimedia Data Mining and Searching Through Dynamic Index Evolution.- Ubiquitous and Mobile Visual Information Systems.- Clustering and Visualizing Audiovisual Dataset on Mobile Devices in a Topic-Oriented Manner.- Adaptive Video Presentation for Small Display While Maximize Visual Information.- An Efficient Compression Technique for a Multi-dimensional Index in Main Memory.- RELT - Visualizing Trees on Mobile Devices.- Auto-generation of Geographic Cognitive Maps for Browsing Personal Multimedia.- Semantics.- Automatic Image Annotation for Semantic Image Retrieval.- Collaterally Cued Labelling Framework Underpinning Semantic-Level Visual Content Descriptor.- Investigating Automatic Semantic Processing Effects in Selective Attention for Just-in-Time Information Retrieval Systems.- News Video Retrieval by Learning Multimodal Semantic Information.- 2D/3D Graphical Visual Data Retrieval.- Visualization of Relational Structure Among Scientific Articles.- 3D Model Retrieval Based on Multi-Shell Extended Gaussian Image.- Neurovision with Resilient Neural Networks.- Applications of Visual Information Systems.- Visual Information for Firearm Identification by Digital Holography.- GIS-Based Lunar Exploration Information System in China.- Semantic 3D CAD and Its Applications in Construction Industry - An Outlook of Construction Data Visualization.- A Fast Algorithm for License Plate Detection.- Applying Local Cooccurring Patterns for Object Detection from Aerial Images.- Enticing Sociability in an Intelligent Coffee Corner.- Geometric and Haptic Modelling of Textile Artefacts.- A Toolkit to Support Dynamic Social Network Visualization.- The Predicate Tree - A Metaphor for Visually Describing Complex Boolean Queries.- Potentialities of Chorems as Visual Summaries of Geographic Databases Contents.- Compound Geospatial Object Detection in an Aerial Image.- Texture Representation and Retrieval Using the Causal Autoregressive Model.- An Approach Based on Multiple Representations and Multiple Queries for Invariant Image Retrieval.

A Methodology for Spatial Consistency Improvement of Geographic Databases

In any information system the reliability of any results of queries, analysis or reasoning, depends on data quality (positional accuracy, consistency and so on). In some cases, answers cannot be obtained due to a lack of information, whereas in other cases answers are wrong or not complete because of inconsistent data. In geographical information systems (GIS), data quality management has to handle the spatial features of objects, which brings specific problems. The goal of this paper is to describe a methodology for spatial consistency improvement of geographical data sets in vector format. It is based on errors survey and classification. Three kinds of errors are identified which lead to three kinds of consistency, namely structural consistency, geometric consistency and topo-semantic consistency. Each of them needs specific checking and correcting processes. All these processes are integrated in a general framework that is presented in this paper. An application of this framework to the Lyon Urban Community GIS (the SUR) is currently conducted; first results are presented.

A visual language for querying spatio-temporal databases

In recent years, citizen oriented applications have been developed with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This is the reason why visual querying appears to be crucial. In the past, we developed a visual language Lvis based on a query-by-example philosophy for spatial data. A query is formulated by means of icons which map spatial objects and operators. But, this language needs also to integrate temporal data handling because geographic databases represent a spatio-temporal continuum. This paper presents the extension of the Lvis language, which was previously only developed for spatial data, to temporal data. New visual metaphors such as balloons and anchors are proposed in order to express spatial and temporal criteria. After a state of the art of visual querying for spatial databases, we introduce a spatiotemporal model. The visual language and its user interface are then explained. Samples are proposed upon a road risk management application. In this sample database both discrete and continuous temporal data are taken into account: moving points such as trucks, and life-cycle objects such as rivers. We then conclude about our future work.

Topological reorganization of inconsistent geographical databases: A step towards their certification☆

Abstract Due to the excessive price of digitizing, many geographical databases are not well captured and structured: even if the maps look good, in reality, the database is likely to consist of a set of lines of various lengths with no sets of cartographic objects. Some experts claim that 80% of actual geographical databases are sets of disordered texts and spaghetti lines instead of well-constructed geographical objects. So, the topological reorganization of those databases represents a challenge to be faced. In this paper, the general problem is described and some solutions are offered, especially regarding the topological reorganization of utility networks and cadasters. The main characteristics of those methods are to combine computational geometry and relational algebra.

Groupware for urban planning : An introduction

Abstract New techniques are presently emerging allowing several people to work cooperatively. Known as Groupware or Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), those techniques are widely used especially for office automation and participatory design. They are usually characterized by different sub-systems for messaging, scheduling, voting, multi-media conferencing and version management using a central database and different local databases typically one per actor. After having given the definitions and characteristics of those techniques, we examine urban planning processes and how groupware can improve the design process of land use plan and written statements in order to find a consensus between the different urban planners and elected officials. For such a domain, additional groupware functionalities must be implemented such as for simulations and reasoning. We conclude that such new tools for urban planning must leave scope for spatial negotiation between several actors.

First specifications of a telegeomonitoring system for the transportation of hazardous materials

Abstract The present work gives general specifications for a monitoring system for the transportation of hazardous materials. The initial structure of the spatial decision support system integrates a range of databases on an interoperable environment. The data integration task illustrates the complex nature of the hazardous materials monitoring system. Three important components of the project, strongly linked to the spatial information system technology, are: (1) operators of graph traversal that is schematized by an object software component; (2) operators of communications proposing the basics of communication between trucks using a global positioning system (GPS) and the supervision system; and (3) the opening of services put at the disposal of the various professional users: public and private operators, etc. The advent of Internet technology democratizes communication and accesses possibilities to services given by the monitoring system. However, for professional utilization an adequate technical infrastructure is proposed. The dynamic knowledge integration in the system of supervision of hazardous materials transportation ensures that spatio-temporal data, real-time constraints, and history of events are taken into account.

A conceptual framework for geographic knowledge engineering

In many applications, the management of geographic knowledge is very important especially not only for urban and environmental planning, but also for any application in territorial intelligence. However there are several practical problems hindering the efficiency, some of them being technical and other being more conceptual. The goal of this paper is to present a tentative conceptual framework for managing practical geographic knowledge taking account of accuracy, rotundity of earth, the mobility of objects, multiple-representation, multi-scale, existence of sliver polygons, differences in classifying real features (ontologies), the many-to-many relationship of place names (gazetteers) and the necessity of interoperability. In other words, this framework must be robust against scaling, generalization and small measurement errors. Therefore, geographic objects must be distinguished into several classes of objects with different properties, namely geodetic objects, administrative objects, manmade objects and natural objects. Regarding spatial relations, in addition to conventional topological and projective relations, other relations including tessellations and ribbon topology relations are presented in order to help model geographic objects by integrating more practical semantics. Any conceptual framework is based on principles which are overall guidelines and rules; moreover, principles allow at making predictions and drawing implications and are finally the basic building blocks of theoretical models. But before identifying the principles, one needs some preliminary considerations named prolegomena. In our case, principles will be essentially rules for transforming geographic knowledge whereas prolegomena will be assertions regarding more the foundations of geographic science. Based on those considerations, 12 principles are given, preceded by 12 prolegomena. For instance, some principles deal with the transformation of spatial relationships based on visual acuity and granularity of interest, with the influence of neighboring information and cross-boundary interoperability. New categories of geographic knowledge types are presented, spatial facts, cluster of areas, flows of persons, goods, etc., topological constraints and co-location rules. To represent knowledge chunks, three styles are presented, based respectively on descriptive logics, XML and visual languages. To conclude this paper, after having defined contexts of interpretation, an example of visual language to manage geographic knowledge is proposed.