An object-oriented spatial data model for virtual geographical environment

Abstract

This paper presents a spatial data model used for modeling geospatial data in virtual geographical environment. Most traditional spatial data modeling approach in geographical information system abstracts physical world with spatial entity and relationship between each other, put emphases on representing spatial feature and their topologies, whilst virtual reality system focus on capacity of keeping vivid rendering, i.e. high fidelity. Taking into account both topological characteristic of spatial data model in GIS and spaghetti characteristic of in VR, We introduce here an integrated spatial data model which could represent both topological and non-topological spatial data and underpin both various spatial analysis functions and real-time rending visualization effectively. This object-oriented method model topological feature separately from geometrical data and links them by a couple link, by which user can access different aspect of spatial data in specific application context. A virtual geographical scene management framework based on above spatial data model is introduced at the last.