Modeling and management of spatio-temporal objects within temporal GIS application framework

Modeling and management of spatiotemporal-thematic data within an object oriented GIS application framework, are presented. The object oriented modeling concepts have been applied in the integration of spatial, thematic and temporal geographic information in the conceptual spatio-temporal object model presented using standard UML class diagram notation. By its implementation in the object oriented application domain and (object-) relational database domain, a spatio-temporal object database kernel has been developed as a spatio-temporal object storage manager. Based on the spatio-temporal object database kernel and the development of appropriate components on top of it for temporal GIS application functionality, a temporal GIS application framework has been developed. A description of its architecture and functional components dedicated to management of temporal aspects of geographic information is given. Desktop- and Internet-based temporal GIS frameworks are further refined from a generic framework.