Re : ACTION-129: Add more spatial relationship things

Some thoughts around these additional relationships, I think the key
motivation here was to some up accommodate more vague relationships between
geographic things.

The noted use case of linear referencing is not in my opinion, an example
of this vagueness, a specific distance along a linear feature from a known
origin is calculable and is often used in engineering software. Likewise a
distance and bearing from a point is a well known and supported function of
nautical and aeronautical navigation software.  These examples are easy
referenced back to a coordinate system.

I would like to see a set of relationships that can be used with objects
which are more difficult/impossible to tie to fixed coordinates as they are
to do with the relationships between things that may not have boundaries or
shapes in the spatial sense. An example would be identifying Bangladeshi
Restaurants in London's East End, the East End a colloquial feature has no
agreed boundary. The meaning of "in" in this case would be different to
"in" where there is a calculable topological relationship?

In the IoT use case I put forward the requirement to support the finding of
my keys.. upstairs, in my bag, under the bed as example of this egocentic
referencing of spatial features in relation to my location.  Rather than a
fixed (and abstract) origin in this case objects are located relative to my
location in time and space, a personal reference system!

I fear this is an example where we may not be able to point to "Best
Practice" as yet.. there is interesting academic work (
http://www.teachspatial.org/concept-browser)  in this space defining
conceptual models, but we should at least highlight the gap perhaps ?

Ed

-- 

*Ed Parsons*
Geospatial Technologist, Google

Google Voice +44 (0)20 7881 4501
www.edparsons.com @edparsons