| |  | Egenhofer, M. | A Critical Comparison of the 4-Intersection and 9-Intersection Models for Spatial Relations: Formal Analysis read moreAbstract: Two formalisms for binary topological spatial relations are compared for their expressive power. The 4-intersection considers the two objects interiors and boundaries and analyzes the intersections of these four object parts for their content (i.e., emptiness and non-emptiness). The 9-intersection adds to the 4-intersection the intersections with the two objects complements. The major results are (1) for objects with co-dimension 0, the 4-intersection and the 9-intersection with the content invariant provide the same results; and (2) for objects with co-dimension > 0, the 9-intersection with the content invariant provides more details than the 4-intersection. These additional details are crucial to determine when two objects are equal. It is also demonstrated that the additional details can provide crucial information when specifying the semantics of spatial relations in GIS query languages. | 1993 |