Defining spatial agents

The concept of agent is becoming increasingly important not only in research (where it has been in use for some time) but also now in commercial applications. However, an agent may represent many d ifferent things according to the people that implement and use them. Based on the concept of agent we define Spatial Agents as agents that make spatial concepts computable. By implementing spatial agents we hope to solve the following problems : Locating and retrieving Spatial Information in large networks (and specifically the Internet), Facilitate the handling of a GIS user interface, Implementing improved spatial tasks and Creating interfaces between GIS and specific software packages. We discuss what are the necessary qualities that a development tool should have to qualify for agent development. We select some of the most prominent tools currently used and try to choose which are best suited for the development of spatial agents. Finally, we reflect on the design of spatial agents that will solve the problems mentioned above and present a prototype of an Interface Agent for the Drawing tool of the Smallworld GIS.

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