Spatial reasoning and planning is a core constituent in robotics,
graphics, computer-aided design, and geographic information systems.
After a review of previous work in the related areas, Liu and Daneshmend
present here a unified framework for qualitative spatial representation
and reasoning, which enables the generation of solutions to spatial
problems where the geometric knowledge is imprecise. The approach
utilizes qualitative spatial representation and reasoning integrated
with a quantitative search procedure based on simulated annealing. Many
graphical illustrations and detailed algorithm descriptions help the
readers to comprehend the solution paths and to develop their own
applications.
The book is written as a self-contained text for researchers and
graduate students in computer science and related engineering
disciplines. The methodologies, algorithmic details, and case studies
presented can be used as course material as well as a convenient
reference.