A model for describing and composing direction relations between overlapping and contained regions

Current models of direction relations are not designed to describe direction information inside the Minimum Bounding Rectangle (MBR) of a reference region. Thus, the direction relations between overlapping and contained regions cannot be effectively described and derived. To resolve this problem, a new model of direction relations, namely interior–boundary direction relations, is proposed in this study to describe direction concepts relative to the interior or boundary of a region, such as “east part of a region”, “west border of a region”, “a line goes through east part of a region”, and etc. By combining the interior and exterior direction relations, three types of compositions of direction relations are investigated: (1) composing two interior direction relations which can be used to derive the interior or exterior direction relations between two regions with the same parent region; (2) composing an interior direction relation with an exterior direction relation; and (3) composing an interior with an exterior direction relation. The results indicate that the new interior–boundary direction relations and its compositions with exterior direction relations are powerful in describing and deriving direction relations between overlapped and contained regions.