A Topological Analysis Method for 3D Geo-Entities Structured as Hexahedron Tessellations

Topological spatial relationships are at the core of geographical information system, especially 3D GIS. The design of suitable models and methods for querying and analyzing topological relationships among spatial objects remains an unsolved problem and is the subject of substantial research. Unfortunately, most modern models and methods support only topological analysis for geographical objects that can be represented using simple 2D regions and lines. These approaches are not sufficient to address the complexity of real 3D geo-entities. This paper introduces a new method for 3D topological analysis. Our approach is an improvement over the nine-intersection model. We propose redefining the original interior, boundary and exterior on the basis of sixfold connectivity as represented by a hexahedron. We use SQL to compute the resulting model matrix. The approach to mapping from a quantitative computed result matrix to a qualitative topological relation is discussed in detail. Our research offers contributions in the areas of topological analysis models and methods for representing 3D geo-entities for spatial querying and analysis.