AVANT-GARDE DIALOGUES

The article is dedicated to comparative analysis of spatial constructions created by the Russian Avant-Garde Artist Alexander Rodchenko and the famous kinetic European and American artist Alexander Calder in the first half of the 20-th century. For both artists technology played the decisive role in constructing spatial objects, both of them used line as a basic expressive element. Still there is a certain difference stressed by the author: Rodchenko used linear elements to express structural and constructive qualities of spatial objects, while Calder was more intending to represent emotion and movement. Rodchenko and Calder belong to the common abstract artistic trend in 20th century sculpture. But their works served as the basis for the two different traditions: minimalist conceptual and geometric art of Donuld Judd on one side and spontaneous mechanisms of Jean Tinguely on the other.

A Hierarchical Spatial Network Index for Arbitrarily Distributed Spatial Objects

The range query is one of the most important query types in spatial data processing. Geographic information systems use it to find spatial objects within a user-specified range, and it supports data mining tasks, such as density-based clustering. In many applications, ranges are not computed in unrestricted Euclidean space, but on a network. While the majority of access methods cannot trivially be extended to network space, existing network index structures partition the network space without considering the data distribution. This potentially results in inefficiency due to a very skewed node distribution. To improve range query processing on networks, this paper proposes a balanced Hierarchical Network index (HN-tree) to query spatial objects on networks. The main idea is to recursively partition the data on the network such that each partition has a similar number of spatial objects. Leveraging the HN-tree, we present an efficient range query algorithm, which is empirically evaluated using three different road networks and several baselines and state-of-the-art network indices. The experimental evaluation shows that the HN-tree substantially outperforms existing methods.

The Classification of GIS Objects

This paper discusses the current issues of the application of classification and data processing in geoinformation systems. The problems of classification of various objects have been studied in the works of many authors. These include a fairly wide range of problems: decryption of satellite images, pattern recognition, mathematical modeling, etc. In this paper, we study the methods and techniques for classifying objects listed in the literature, as well as preliminary data processing: feature normalization, feature weighting, aggregation, dimensionality reduction, etc. The result of finding spatial features in an attribute space is often a representation of spatial features in the form of an object-feature matrix that reflects the measurement of M features on N spatial features and contains N rows and M columns. To classify spatial objects, you must have a geographical map of these objects and an object-attribute matrix, the rows of which correspond to the spatial objects. In order to properly classify, you need to perform pre-processing of the data, including normalization, weighting, dimensionality reduction, aggregation, and identification. After preliminary data processing, the objects are classified. The paper lists and describes such classification methods as nuclear classification methods, hierarchical divisive classification methods, hierarchical agglomerative classification methods, near neighbor method, far neighbor method, centroid method, group mean method (mean link method) and other issues related to the classification of geoinformation objects.

The Application of Spatial Approximations to Spatial Query Processing: A Systematic Review of Literature

Spatial approximations simplify the geometric shape of complex spatial objects. Hence, they have been employed to alleviate the evaluation of costly computational geometric algorithms when processing spatial queries. For instance, spatial index structures employ them to organize spatial objects in tree structures (e.g., the R-tree). We report experiments considering two real datasets composed of ∼1.5 million regions and ∼2.7 million lines. The experiments confirm the performance benefits of spatial approximations and spatial index structures. However, we also identify that a second processing step is needed to deliver the final answer and often requires higher processing time than the step that uses index structures only. It leads to the interest in studying how spatial approximations can be efficiently used to improve both steps. This paper presents a systematic review on this topic. As a result, we provide an overview and comparison of existing approaches that propose, evaluate, or make use of spatial approximations to optimize the performance of spatial queries. Further, we characterize them and discuss some future trends.

Hybrid algorithms for geospatial analysis of dam location points in protective tasks for protected areas

Objective. In recent decades, criteria for identifying potential areas have evolved hand in hand with technological tools such as geographic information systems (GIS). However, the criteria for the preservation of protected areas are often not taken into account, thus causing damage to environmental biodiversity that can become irreparable. This paper presents the way of optimizing the process of locating key terrain points by developing a hybrid algorithm for geospatial analysis in QGIS. The goal is to speed up computational time, which is a critical variable for the entire key point detection process, and to suggest potential areas that do not pose a threat to biodiversity. Methods. The strategy used is based on two fundamental assumptions: identifying the tops of spatial objects (rivers) and analyzing the distances between spatial objects (rivers and adjacent territories). The tops extraction allows obtaining potential points, while the distance analysis allows selecting among them those points that are in the range acceptable for locating a dam, provided that the least possible damage to the biodiversity of the adjacent territory is caused. The algorithm was validated using the example of the hydrological network of Manicaragua, Cuba. Results. The results were compared in terms of the calculation time used, the number of valid tops extracted, and the percentage reduction in the total number of areas. This comparison was made using one, two and three vector layers (.shp) with spatial objects representing strategic protected areas. Conclusion. The results obtained show that the more representative the space data (.shp) used, the more effective the results obtained using the algorithm are in relation to environmental protection tasks. A reduction of up to 13% from originally detected key points has been achieved.

A Decentralized Semantic Reasoning Approach for the Detection and Representation of Continuous Spatial Dynamic Phenomena in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a decentralized semantic reasoning approach for modeling vague spatial objects from sensor network data describing vague shape phenomena, such as forest fire, air pollution, traffic noise, etc. This is a challenging problem as it necessitates appropriate aggregation of sensor data and their update with respect to the evolution of the state of the phenomena to be represented. Sensor data are generally poorly provided in terms of semantic information. Hence, the proposed approach starts with building a knowledge base integrating sensor and domain ontologies and then uses fuzzy rules to extract three-valued spatial qualitative information expressing the relative position of each sensor with respect to the monitored phenomenon’s extent. The observed phenomena are modeled using a fuzzy-crisp type spatial object made of a kernel and a conjecture part, which is a more realistic spatial representation for such vague shape environmental phenomena. The second step of our approach uses decentralized computing techniques to infer boundary detection and vertices for the kernel and conjecture parts of spatial objects using fuzzy IF-THEN rules. Finally, we present a case study for urban noise pollution monitoring by a sensor network, which is implemented in Netlogo to illustrate the validity of the proposed approach.

The experience of creating a database in a GIS environment

Modern geographic information systems provide great opportunities for using a variety of data on spatial objects, searching and storing materials in a convenient form. The authors describe the experience of creating a spatial river-database of Mordovia Republic, RF in a GIS environment based on the reference manual “Hydrological knowledge”. Various approaches to solving the task were tried. The assessment of the temporal reliability of the data was carried out, since over time a number of water-bodies’ names became outdated; the river network had undergone changes due to natural reasons and under the influence of economic activity. The created database of streams of Mordovia can be used as a reference and information source.

Research to justify the perspective use of individual coordinate systems for contiguous objects modelling with the case study of Moscow Saints Petersburg railway

The science of cartography should provide a historical mission, that is navigation, and also meet modern agendas including significantly expanding opportunities for BIM technologies, integrating functions of GIS and CAD systems. In this regard, cartography should be considered a fundamental basis for modern trends while creating digital twins of spatial objects. The practical part of the provided experiments included data collecting aimed at Moscow Saints Petersburg railway infrastructure, the calculation of optimal parameters of the oblique Mercator projection in the Hotine version for the given object, and the construction of a 3D railway track model. This research investigated the principles of unique cartographic projections, strictly focused on the certain functioning objects. The research can helps many users and designers of digital twins of spatial objects pay their attention to the applied cartography specifics concerning these issues and also take into account the recommendations while creating Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Infrastructure Information Modelling (IIM) as well.