On the complemented disk algebra

The importance of relational methods in temporal and spatial reasoning has been widely recognised in the last two decades. A quite large part of contemporary spatial reasoning is concerned with the research of relation algebras generated by the "part of" and "connection" relations in various domains. This paper is devoted to the study of one particular relation algebra appeared in the literature, viz. the complemented disk algebra. This algebra was first described by Duntsch [I. Duntsch, A tutorial on relation algebras and their application in spatial reasoning, Given at COSIT, August 1999, Available from: < http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/similar to duentsch/papers/relspat.html >] and then, Li et al. [Y. Li, S. Li, M. Ying, Relational reasoning in the Region Connection Calculus, Preprint, 2003, Available from: < http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0505041 >] showed that closed disks and their complements provides a representation. This set of regions is rather restrictive and, thus, of limited practical values. This paper will provide a general method for generating representations of this algebra in the framework of Region Connection Calculus. In particular, connected regions bounded by Jordan curves and their complements is also such a representation. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.