Alternative areal decompositions: an empirical study

Abstract

This article compares area data representation with several areal decomposition alternatives in order to determine any improvement to efficiency at the expense of accuracy. This article utilizes the Voronoi diagram as an underlying base data model, combines polygon partitioning and the Voronoi diagram to provide several alternative hybrid areal decompositions, and empirically examines the efficiency and effectiveness performance of these alternatives for popular GIS operations: geometrical, topological and reclassification operations. Experimental results reveal that most areal decomposition alternatives are likely to produce significant benefits in time efficiency while generating different levels of accuracy.