Efficient algorithms for spatial configuration information retrieval

The problem of spatial configuration information retrieval is a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP), which can be solved using traditional CSP algorithms. But the spatial data can be reorganized using index techniques like R-tree and the spatial data are approximated by their minimum bounding rectangles (MBRs), so the spatial configuration information retrieval is actually based on the MBRs and some special techniques can be studied. This paper studies the mapping relationships among the spatial relations for real spatial objects, the corresponding spatial relations for their MBRs and the corresponding spatial relations between the intermediate nodes and the MBRs in R-tree. Three algorithms are designed and studied, and their performances are compared. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.