Modelling the spatial evolution of map objects by map agents

To overcome the weakness of modelling the relationships between map objects that represent the same geographic entities or phenomena at different times and scales, an agent-based approach is presented to modelling of the spatial evolution of map objects for better understanding of the evolutional process of different maps. Map agents are used to establish and manage the many-to-many corresponding relationships between map objects, and they render map objects active rather than traditionally passive. The evolutions of map objects are modelled by map agents using association and generation relationships to model the connectivity between map objects. This effort reduces the workload of multi-scale map updating by avoiding update of the entire map; instead, it simply allows map agents to detect, perceive and choose suitable behaviours on which to operate and update a spatially evolving object. Experiments of specific examples are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and the effectiveness of our approach.