SD-miner: A spatial data mining system

Abstract

Owing to the GIS technology, a vast volume of spatial data has been accumulated, thereby incurring the necessity of spatial data mining techniques. In this paper, we propose a new spatial data mining system named SD-Miner. SD-Miner consists of three parts: a graphical user interface for inputs and outputs, a data mining module that processes spatial data mining functionalities, a data storage model that stores and manages spatial as well as non-spatial data by using a DBMS. In particular, the data mining module provides major spatial data mining functionalities such as spatial clustering, spatial classification, spatial characterization, and spatio-temporal association rule mining. SD-Miner has its own characteristics: (1) It supports users to perform non-spatial data mining functionalities as well as spatial data mining functionalities intuitively and effectively; (2) It provides users with spatial data mining functions as a form of libraries, thereby making applications conveniently use those functions. (3) It inputs parameters for mining as a form of database tables to increase flexibility.