Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 74
Methodological Context ............................................................................................................. 74
Analytical methodologies .......................................................................................................... 74
Spatial analysis as a process ..................................................................................................... 80
Spatial analysis and the PPDAC model ................................................................................... 81
Problem: Framing the question ............................................................................................... 84
Plan: Formulating the approach.............................................................................................. 86
Data: Data acquisition ................................................................................................................ 88
Analysis: Analytical methods and tools ................................................................................. 90
Conclusions: Delivering the results ........................................................................................ 93
Geospatial analysis and model building ................................................................................. 93
The changing context of GIScience ...................................................................................... 100
Building Blocks of Spatial Analysis ........................................................................................ 102
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Data Models and Methods ................................................... 103
Geometric and Related Operations ...................................................................................... 108
Length and area for vector data ........................................................................................... 109
Length and area for raster datasets ..................................................................................... 112
Surface area ............................................................................................................................... 114
Line Smoothing and point-weeding ...................................................................................... 119
Centroids and centers.............................................................................................................. 122
Point (object) in polygon (PIP) .............................................................................................. 131
Polygon decomposition ............................................................................................................ 133
Shape ........................................................................................................................................... 135
Overlay and combination operations ................................................................................... 137
Areal interpolation ................................................................................................................... 141
Districting and re-districting .................................................................................................. 144
Classification and clustering .................................................................................................. 151
Boundaries and zone membership ....................................................................................... 168
Tessellations and triangulations ............................................................................................ 176
Queries, Computations and Density ..................................................................................... 182
Spatial selection and spatial queries ................................................................................... 182
Simple calculations ................................................................................................................... 183
Ratios, indices, normalization, standardization and rate smoothing .......................... 188
Density, kernels and occupancy............................................................................................ 193
Distance Operations ................................................................................................................. 209
Metrics ......................................................................................................................................... 212
Cost distance .............................................................................................................................. 219
Network distance ...................................................................................................................... 229
Buffering ..................................................................................................................................... 231
Distance decay models ............................................................................................................ 234
Directional analysis of linear datasets ................................................................................. 239
Directional analysis of point datasets .................................................................................. 245
Directional analysis of surfaces ............................................................................................. 247
Grid Operations and Map Algebra ......................................................................................... 249