Spatial Information Research Group

Weekly Meetings

SIRG holds its weekly research meeting every Wednesday from 1:30-3:00 in 2B01.

Events

Bob Firth, "The Long Squiggly Line That's Killing Our Transit System and an Information Science Solution",. Feb 21, 2007

Current activities

Navigating the WWW

The problem of how to improve navigation for web browsers can be addressed by comparing the nature of real and virtual spaces. At present, we exploring how real-world navigational tools and urban design principles might be translated to hyperspaces. We are also examining the use of fisheye views and other "you-are-here" pointers for virtual spaces.

Structure of cognitive maps

Appropriate representational structures for cognitive spaces are explored, with an emphasis on representing the inherent hierarchical, but overlapping, structure in cognitive maps.

Geometries for Spatio-Temporal Reasoning

Many traditional taxonomies which follow the topological to Euclidean continuum of mathematical geometries seem ill- suited for describing cognitive behavior and reasoning. Instead, it has been suggested that hierarchical structured geometries or those that distinguish between local and global relations might prove to be of greater value. For example, it most likely that local relations are close to Euclidean, whereas global relations are topological at best. How these levels might build on each other and interact is of particular interest.