Topological relations between a directed line and a directed region

Abstract

AbstractRepresenting the topological relations between directed spatial objects has gained increasing attention in recent years. Although topological relations between directed lines and other types of spatial objects, such as regions and bodies, have been widely investigated, few studies have focused on the topological relations between directed lines and directed regions. This research focuses on the representation and application of directed line–directed region (DLDR) topological relations, and may contribute to spatial querying and spatial analyses related to directed spatial objects or time‐varying objects. Compared with other topological relation models, a DLDR model that considers the starting and ending points of the directed line and the front and back faces of directed regions is proposed in this research to describe the topological relations between directed lines and directed regions. DLDR topological relations are presented, the completeness of the 111 DLDR topological relations is proved, and the topological relations based on the 9‐intersection model (9IM), 9+‐intersection model (9+‐IM), and DLDR model are compared. The formalism of the DLDR model and the corresponding geometric interpretations of the 111 DLDR topological relations are presented, seven propositions are stated to prove the completeness of the 111 DLDR topological relations, and the case study shows that more detailed topological relation information can be obtained based on the DLDR model.