Qualitative spatial reasoning
Qualitative spatial reasoning studies logical systems for reasoning about space and geometrical objects in the absence of a coordinate system. It originates in philosophical logic, going back to Whitehead and Russell, and is distinguished from classical synthetic geometry by its emphasis on regions over points and lines. Closer to my interests, it is also a longstanding topic in logical and symbolic AI.
AI literature
Books and surveys
- Cohn & Hazarika, 2001: Qualitative spatial representation and reasoning: An overview
- Cohn & Renz, 2008: Qualitative spatial representation and reasoning (doi, pdf)
- Chen, Cohn, et al, 2013: A survey of qualitative spatial representations (doi, pdf)
- Forbus, 2019: Qualitative representations (doi)
- Concerns qualitative reasoning about continuous phenomena generally: “Qualitative representations provide discrete, symbolic descriptions of the continuous world.”
- Part III is about qualitative spatial reasoning
- Combines AI and cognitive science perspectives
History
- Trybus, 2021: Russell and the foundations of qualitative spatial reasoning: the first steps (doi)
Region connection calculus
The region connection calculus (RCC) is a mereotopolgical system for qualitative reasoning about connectedness and parthood of regions in space.