ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some background to the issues that surround the link between analysis and geographic information systems (GIS), including a discussion of barriers that stand in the way of spatial analytic research. A large literature has emerged on the techniques of spatial analysis where some sort of modern technology, such as supercomputers or GIS or networked interaction, is implied. At the heart of spatial analysis is measurement and representation of geography. J. D. Nystuen identified three fundamental relationships in spatial analysis: distance, connectivity, and direction. Traditional spatial analysis implements the first two relationships in very limited forms and virtually ignores the third. The integration of spatial analysis with GIS has come a long way since the early call to action formulated by M. F. Goodchild in the late 1980s. GIScience can contribute by developing heuristic procedures that exploit empirical data on the spatial distributions of attributes within objects that affect the likelihood of interaction.
