Toward a Visual Query System for Spatio-Temporal Databases

Abstract

Visual query systems (VQS) for spatio-temporal databases, which enable formulation of queries involving both spatial and temporal dimensions, are an important research subject. Existing results treat these dimensions separately and there are only a few integrated proposals. This chapter presents a VQS called spatio-temporal visual query environment (S-TVQE), which allows the formulation of conventional, spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal database queries in an integrated environment. With S-TVQE, the user, instead of querying the database by textual query languages will interact with the system by visual operators for the statement of the query conditions. The tool provides a visualization of the results in different formats such as maps, graphics, and tables.