Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
Movement Spaces and Movement Traces
The analysis of the observed movement by means of computers requires abstraction,
conceptual modeling, and formalization of the moving entities and the spaces
embedding that movement (Peuquet
2002
). This preliminary but crucial stage of
Computational Movement Analysis (CMA) requires modeling choices but is also
constrained by the data sources at hand. This chapter investigates how movement
can be modeled from the various data sources contributing to CMA, and discusses
implications of the characteristics of models and sources on how movement can be
captured and characterized, structured and analyzed.
Overarching research objectives.
The research summarized in this chapter
contributes to the following overarching research objectives of computational move-
ment analysis.
•
Contribute to the establishment of a theory of computational movement analysis,
drawing on concepts and methods of GIScience and related research fields.
•
Investigate the implications of the conceptual modeling of movement spaces and
the movement embedded in these spaces on the process and the outcomes of
computational movement analysis.
2.1 Data
This topic focuses on the movement of real world entities that can be abstracted as
moving point objects (MPOs). The research covered in this topic investigates move-
ment of a diverse set of MPOs, including various animal species (for instance, racing
pigeons, fish, sheep, cows, and brushtail possums), several expressions of human
mobility (including bicyclists, couriers, playing children), movement of abstract
objects in the physical environment (hurricanes), as well as simulated movement of
software agents (simulated pedestrians, sensor nodes of a wireless sensor network,
and agents performing various forms of random walk). Table
2.1
gives a comparative
overview of data sources contributing to this volume.
