Browsing in geographic databases: an object-oriented approach

An interaction model for object-oriented geographic databases is presented. A browsing technique based on the model is outlined. The approach is uniform for navigating both the intensional and extensional part of the database. The proposed interaction model is flexible and is suitable for satisfying many purposes. It is able to satisfy users interested in getting a general idea about the contents of the database, as well as those with more specific tasks to accomplish. Depending on their requirements, users may control the degree of complexity of the information presented on the screen. Two basic criteria are adopted for browsing the database: logic adjacency and spatial adjacency between objects. Logic adjacency is determined by four conceptual links, while spatial adjacency is related to the two-dimensional (map-based) view of geographic entities