Modeling and Multiple Perceptions

Abstract

Multirepresentation generalizes known concepts such as database views and geographic multiscale databases. This chapter describes the handling of multi-representation in the MADS (Modeling Application Data with Spatio-temporal features) data modeling approach. MADS builds on the concept of orthogonality to support multiple modeling dimensions. The structural basis of the MADS model is based on extended entity-relationship (ER) constructs. This is complemented with three other modeling dimensions: space, time, and representation. The latter allows the specification of multiple perceptions of the real world and modeling of the multiple representations of real-world elements that are needed to materialize these perceptions.