A FORMAL CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND DEFINITIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SPATIAL DATACUBES

Spatial datacubes extend the datacube concept underlying the field of Business Intelligence (BI) into the realm of spatial analysis, geographic knowledge discovery, and spatial decision-support. The traditional computer science community has defined spatial datacubes and their fundamental components (e.g., spatial dimension and spatial measure) through formal models limiting spatial data as only those data that has a geometric representation. The geomatics community has pursued spatial datacube models with a much richer view of spatial data. However, the proposed models by the geomatics community have not yet been formalized using precise mathematical languages. This paper, for the first time, integrates the rigor of mathematical languages with the richer view of spatial data to provide a formal model and precise definitions of spatial datacubes and their fundamental components. The proposed definitions provide the scientific community with a common and precise terminology for the concepts involved in spatial decision-support databases.