Visual Spatio-Temporal Programming with a 3D Region Connection Calculus

The ability to perform qualitative spatial reasoning over a collection of 3D objects would be useful for a variety of problem domains, including biomedical analyses, geographic information systems, and mechanical modeling. In addition to the logical consistency checking that would be required for such a system, clearly there would be a need for a graphical interface that would allow the user to view and manipulate the objects and the corresponding spatial relationships. Additionally, consideration should be given to representing how those spatial relations can change over time. Herein we present a visual programming environment that facilitates spatio-temporal representation of and reasoning over a collection of 3D objects. This system effectively allows the user to create visual "programs", utilizing a region connection calculus to identify and enforce the spatial constraints that logically must hold between the objects over a series of abstract time periods. Keywords-qualitative spatial reasoning; constraint logic programming; region connection calculus

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