ISPRS, Vol.34, Part 2W2, “Dynamic and Multi-Dimensional GIS”, Bangkok, May 23-25, 2001 
we go beyond the third dimension, we often 
think of time, an important attribute of a 
dynamic system. However, a multi 
dimensional GIS does not necessarily contain 
time as one of its coordinates. In fact, a multi 
attribute database in the traditional sense is 
multidimensional, if we consider each attribute 
as a co-ordinate in some kind of space. ” 
Therefore, the context of "dynamic and multi-dimensional' 1 can 
be considered as follows: 
Dynamic and 
multi - dimensional 
Dynamic 
Objects 
- Processes 
Temporal 
H (height) 
Multi — dimensional 
Scale 
Theme 
Time 
Figure 1 Context of "Dynamic and Multi-dimensional GIS 
It is noticeable that time is involved in both dynamic and multi 
dimensional component. This is because there are two major 
metaphors of time, i.e. as arrow representing progress and as 
cycle representing constancy and continuity (Hazelton, 1992). 
In the former, "we consider it to be comparable to a ‘line’ that 
continues infinitely in both directions, whereas with cyclic time 
we perceive time to revolve in a repeating sequence, such as 
days, months and years" (Zhang and Hunter, 2000). 
3.THE DEVELOPMENT OF DYNAMIC AND MULTI 
DIMENSIONAL GIS 
Since the late 1980s in GIS community, attention has been 
paid to dynamic and multi-dimensional GIS (e.g. Armstrong 
1988, Langran and Chrisman 1988, Raper 1989). Some very 
important literature has been published in this area in early 
1990s. Published books on this topic include ‘Time in 
Geographic Information Systems” (Langran 1992), ‘Three- 
dimensional Modelling with Geoscientific Information Systems” 
(Turner 1992), and ‘Theories and Methods for Spatio-temporal 
Reasoning in Geographic Space” (Frank et al. 1992). 
In mid 1990s, more researchers advocated research in this 
direction (e.g. Raper 1995). A number of important academic 
activities have been organised since mid 1990s. Examples 
are: 3-D spatial data modeling (Fritsch, 1996), spatio- 
temporal data model (Claramount, 1995; Peuquet, et al, 
1996), dynamic handling of spatial data (Gold, 1997; Chen et 
al, 1997), integrating and inter-operation of heterogeneous 
data (Dieberger, 1995; Craglia, 1996), multi-dimension 
indexing and querying (Lee, 1997; Zaslavsky, 1997), 
visualisation of multi-dimension data (Shepherd, 1995; Lin et 
al, 1996), interpolation and analysis of multi-dimension data 
(Gold, 1994; Shibasaki et al, 1996), large volume of data 
organization and database updating (Trinder, 1999), fuzzy 
objects (Cheng and Molenaar, 1998, 1999a, 1999b), spatial- 
temporal database (Abraham and Roddick, 1999). 
In 1994, an international conference on “Spatial Date Modeling 
and Query Languages for 2-D and 3-D Applications” (Molenaar 
and de Hoop 1994) was held in the Netherlands. In the same 
year, a specialist meeting of Research Initiative 10 was 
organised in Lake Arrowhead, California, in 1994 by NCGIA 
(Egenhofer and Golledge, 1994). In 1995, an international 
symposium called ‘Towards Three Dimensional, Temporal and 
Dynamic Spatial Data Modeling and Analysis” (Chen et. al. 
1995) was held at the Wuhan Technical University of 
Surveying and Mapping, China. 
The 1980s and early 1990s are the pregnancy periods of 
dynamic and multi-dimensional GIS. The real birth of dynamic 
and multi-dimensional GIS was given in 1997, which is a year 
of special meanings in GIS history. It is the year of the 30 th 
anniversary of Tomlinson’s report Tomlinson (1967) and is the 
year the 10 th anniversary of International Journal of 
Geographical Information Systems and the year when this 
journal was renamed as International Journal of Geographical 
Information Science. It is also the year we see the publication 
of two new GIS journals -- Geolnformatica and Transaction in 
GIS. 
In August 1997, the first International Workshop on Dynamic 
and Multi-dimensional GIS was organised by Y. C. Lee and 
Zhi-lin Li (Lee and Li, 1997) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic 
University. This work was initiated by Prof. Jun Chen, Prof. 
Y.C. Lee, Dr. Zhi-lin Li Prof. M. Molenaar and Prof. Anthony 
Yeh and was a joint workshop of a number of ISPRS Working