VISCO: bringing visual spatial querying to reality

The paper reports on the evolution of the spatial (sketch based) query language VISCO and its implementation. The first design of VISCO´s query language was presented at VL ´97. The language is based on a strong naive physics metaphor for query objects (e.g. marbles, nails, rubber bands). We review the prominent aspects of the revised version of VISCO´s query language. The main focus of the paper is on VISCO´s implementation using city maps of Hamburg as example domain. Its innovative user interface consists of three interconnected components: a graphical (syntax directed) query editor and visual language compiler, a browser for inspecting the query results, and a map viewer for browsing the spatial database. We also briefly report on the process of compiling, optimizing, and executing VISCO´s queries