ABSTRACT
The spatio-temporal data model (STDM) offers much practical guidance, and implies the feasibility of applying object-oriented methods to the problem of handling space and time in GIS. Spatio-temporal data modelling is about organising abstract concepts of a knowledge domain into formal descriptions. A spatio-temporal data model should provide constructs for representing a knowledge domain in terms of entity/event abstractions, relationship abstractions, behaviour specifications and interaction descriptions. Data model changes affect the position, orientation and scale of a space-time path in the STDM. The STDM provides a distinction in version configuration between the system level and the application level. The version management mechanism designed for the STDM implies versioning at the instance level of versioned classes, as well as the classification of their attributes. Non-version significant attributes have been incorporated into the STDM in such a way that they are attributes whose values are updated in a destructive manner.
