A spatio-temporal geometry-based model for digital documentation of historical living systems

Representations used in digital documentation applications today usually assume a world that only exists in the present. Information contained within a database may be added-to or modified over time, but change through time is seldom maintained. This limitation of current IT has recently received attention, given the increasingly urgent need to understand geographical processes and cause-and-effect inter-relationships between human activities and the environment. Models proposed for the representation of spatio-temporal data are extensions of traditional raster and vector representations that can be seen as location-or feature-based, respectively, and are therefore best organized for performing, either location- or feature-based queries. In this paper, a new spatio-temporal data model suitable for digital documentation of historical living systems (artefacts, monuments and sites) is defined: it is based on 3D geometry and intended to facilitate analysis of temporal relationships and patterns of 3D modeling changes through time. This is particularly useful to both IT and IS managers, researchers and practitioners. It is shown that time-based queries related to 3D models of objects can be processed in an efficient and straightforward manner using the model. Finally, analytical time efficiency estimations are given, showing that the model is also an efficient and compact representation of spatio-temporal information.