Towards Platial Joins and Buffers in Place-Based GIS

Place-based GIS are still a novel research topic and break with some traditions of established systems. The typical spatial perspective is based on geometric reference systems that include coordinates, distances, topology, and directions; while the alternative platial perspective is usually characterized by place names and descriptions as well as semantic relationships between places. In past decades, space-based geographic information systems have made significant progress in terms of theories, models, functionalities, and applications. In contrast, place-based GIS are not yet well developed, although there is an increasing interest in platial and especially relational approaches. In this paper we take an example-driven, first step towards introducing place-based versions of the well known spatial join and buffer operations, and apply them to deal with place-based semantic compression and expansion in DBpedia.