Topological queries in spatial databases
PODS '96 Proceedings of the fifteenth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART symposium on Principles of database systems
First-order qualitative spatial representation languages with convexity
Spatial Cognition and Computation
Toward a geometry of common sense: a semantics and a complete axiomatization of mereotopology
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Suppose we want to develop a theory of space in which the primary entities are not points, but regions. How do we proceed? Historically, the most popular approach is to select a group of spatial relations corresponding to familiar spatial concepts, and then to construct an axiomatic system governing these relations. The appropriateness of this axiomatic system is to be judged on the basis of its ability to chime with pre-theoretic intuition and of its success in a larger theory of scientific or commonsense spatial reasoning. In this paper, we argue that this approach is flawed, and leads only to labyrinthine systems of doubtful theoretical or practical value. We present an alternative approach which substitutes mathematical rigour for pre-theoretic intuition, and which at the same time provides a real guarantee of practical applicability.