Qualitative Spatial Representation for the Humanities. Issue 1 (October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Stell, John G.
• Is Part Of: International journal of humanities and arts computing. Volume 13:Issue 1/2(2019)
• Page Start: 2
• Page End: 27
• Publication Date: 2019-10
• Subjects: Spatial models -- qualitative spatial relations -- qualitative spatial reasoning and representation -- mereotopology -- computational topology -- spatial humanities; Humanities -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Arts -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 001.30285
• DOI: 10.3366/ijhac.2019.0228
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1753-8548

Abstract

Abstract : 'Qualitative spatial reasoning and representation' is a range of techniques developed in Artificial Intelligence to meet the need for a computational treatment of qualitative spatial relations. Examples of such relations include 'next to', 'overlapping', 'to the left of', 'separate from', 'including', and so on. These relations occur within the data found in the spatial humanities, but the computational techniques described here do not appear to have been used in connection with this context. While Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are widely used as a means of visualizing and exploring material in the spatial humanities, GIS technology is acknowledged to be ill-suited to information that is vague, uncertain, ambiguous, imprecise or having other qualities that in a scientific setting could be regarded as imperfections. In the humanities such 'imperfections' are of course important, and qualitative spatial relations are one source of data that challenges scientifically based GIS. This article reviews the origin of qualitative spatial reasoning and representation in A. N. Whitehead's mereotopology and argues for exploring how these methods could complement GIS as a computational technique in the humanities. Qualitative representation is applicable to modelling spatial arrangements in many domains, not just geographical space. This is demonstrated through an example of spatial relations in lines of printed text.