Representing Geographic Information in Multidimensional XML: Appling Dimensions in Spatial Databases

Multidimensional XML or MXML is a suggested extension of XML. It incorporates dimensions in order to represent in an elegant and concise way context dependent data. That is data which can exhibit different variations in value or structure e.g. that can exist in different formats or various degrees of detail. In this paper we show that MXML dimensions can be used to express spatial information and associate it with XML elements and attributes. We discuss about the properties of GISs and the features of MXML which are necessary in order to represent space. We also give key points that motivate further investigation on the use of MXML for representing spatial data and their behavior.