Cellular automata and their application to modeling Spatial-temporal process of urban development

In the modeling of the spatial_temporal process of urban development, the support of the geographical information system(GIS) technology is needed. But the present commercial GIS software cannot completely express the information and relationship of geographical entities. The capability of spatial_temporal analysis and dynamical modeling is not good enough. Cellular Automata (CA) are a kind of dynamically modeling framework "from bottom to up" and possess the capability to model the complicated geographical system. This article describes the principle and features of CA, introduces their structured methods, and finally analyzes the feasibility and practicability of their application to the modeling of spatial_temporal process of urban development.