Geographic Space Ontology, Locus-Object, and Spatial Data Representation Semantic Theory
Résumé
Within the general framework of the analysis of the geographic space and its ontological components by remote sensing, the author explores the ability of the morphogenetic modeling in the recognition of one major ontological and semantic concept of geography: the “locus-object.” The “locus-object” couple concept results from the interrelation formalization between the geographic locus, the geographic object, and the geo-localization notions. Geographic loci and objects are linked and both geo-localized. The links and relations between locus and object are mathematically formalized by geospatiology, the study of the logical role of space in the study of entities on the surface of the Earth. Morphogenetic modeling recognizes the loci of the geographic space by spatial discontinuities detection. The spatial discontinuities allow the identification of the types of spatial differentiations (boundaries, limits) between two geographic entities. The concept of “locus-object” is one of the key conceptual ontological elements of the geographic space.