SPATIAL KNOWLEDGE BASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR CHARTING AND MAPPING

TO SUPPORT THE APPLICATION OF INCREASING AMOUNTS OF DIGITAL MAPPING AND CHARTING DATA SETS, SYSTEMS MUST BE CREATED TO REPRESENT GEOGRAPHIC AND CARTOGRAPHIC INFORMATION. THESE SYSTEMS MUST HAVE THE ABILITY TO MODEL HIGH-LEVEL INFORMATION WHILE INTEGRATING LOW-LEVEL GEOGRAPHIC FEATURE AND CARTOGRAPHIC PROCESS INFORMATION AND TO RUN IN A MICRO-COMPUTER ENVIRONMENT. OBJECT-ORIENTED DATA BASE MODELS ARE PROPOSED AS A MEANS TO ENCODE THIS TYPE OF INFORMATION. OBJECT-ORIENTED METHODOLOGIES CAN MODEL THE STRUCTURAL KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED, SUCH AS GEOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS. IT ALSO SUPPORTS THE MODELING OF PROCESS-ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE, SUCH AS THEMATIC ANALYSIS AND CARTOGRAPHIC PRESENTATION. A PLAN IS SUBMITTED TO DEMONSTRATE THE FEASIBILITY OF IMPLEMENTING, ON A MICRO-COMPUTER, THE OBJECT-ORIENTED DATA BASE MODEL REQUIRED TO REPRESENT SPATIAL INFORMATION. FURTHER ANALYSIS WILL IDENTIFY KNOWLEDGE SOURCES NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT ADVANCED CARTOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS. FINALLY, WE WILL IDENTIFY A CONCEPT OF OPERATION AND USER INTERFACE REQUIREMENTS FOR A SPATIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM.