Research On The Expression And Analysis Of Spatio-temporal Information Of Individual Activities Based On Time Geography

The expression and analysis of the spatio-temporal information of individualactivities help to understand individual behavior, to analyze an individual behavior withother individuals and social resources, and to plan time and space activities. For a longtime, the study of the time and space characteristics of individual behavior wasrestricted by the difficult of obtaining the large amount of spatio-temporal data ofindividual activities and the lack of quantitative analysis and visualization tools. Thedevelopment of GIS, GPS, mobile communication and Internet technology makes thesetwo limitations easier to be solved to a certain extent. However, there are still someproblems waiting to be studied. There are some shortcomings in the theories of usingtime geography tools to express and analyze individual activities. The method andapplication of the spatio-temporal information still have some deficiencies.On the basis of previous studies, four aspects of research have been done based ongeographic information system and time geography tools in this paper. Firstly, this paperstudies the expression of the spatio-temporal information. According to the demand oftime geography visualization, this paper tries to get a clear understanding of the datasources and explore how to sort data, convert the common spatio-temporal data theformat that needed, and build3D visualization of individual’s activities. By doing these,this paper aims to build a bridge between the measured data and the visualization resultsand to explore the integration visualization methods of time and space information.Secondly, this paper does some research of the spaio-temporal node planning problem.After analyzing the time and space constraints of individuals in an activity, this paperexpressed their spatio-temporal constraints as space-time paths, cylinders and prismsaccording to their different types of time and space constraints. On this basis, this paperconverts the problem of finding the meeting place and time of both sides in anappointment into calculating their time and space intersection in the ArcGISenvironment. This planning and optimization method of the spatio-temporal nodeswhich was based on time geography and GIS technology can be used in emergencyrelief, logistics, tourism and some other fields to plan the time and place of anappointment as well as get the path optimized, which thereby contributes to improvements of efficiency and savings of costs. Thirdly, this paper studies the analysisand application of the individual potential range of time and space. Based ontime-geography tools, this paper optimizes the search process on considering that timeis a continuous variable. Space-time prism is used to express the sptio-temporalconstraints of missing person as well as the search teams. In the spatio-temporalenvironment, this place where both the missing person and the search team can arrive atthe same time is the intersection of both sides’ space-time prisms. In this way, the searcharea is narrowed and the time period is identified to be more precise. This method canbe used in combination with other methods to improve the efficiency, save cost, as wellas allocate the research resources in a search and rescue process. Finally, some work isdone on the modeling of space-time prism on considering that the surface of earth iscovered by different types of land use. The new method of modeling space-time primmakes it more intuitive and more precise to express the individual actividies especiallythe authority constraints.Focusing on the expression and analysis of the spatio-temporal information ofindividual activities, this paper combines GIS and time geography together. By doingthis, this paper tries to expand the application of GIS in real society and help usunderstand the individual’s spatio-temporal behavior better. The integrationvisualization method of spatio-temporal information of individual activities has betterdisplay effect and is more integrated and comprehensive. The planning ofspatio-temporal nodes takes full account of the constraints of different individuals,which will improve the efficiency and make the space and time booking successful. Thesearch method based on the analysis of individual spatio-temporal constraints makes thesearch process more accurate, which can effectively assist search and rescue work. Thisstudy solves some problems of the expression and analysis of spatial and temporalinformation. At the same time, this study expands the application of time geography anddoes some work on extending the content of geographic information system.