Qualitativeness -- A cognitive perspective on knowledge representation -- Qualitative representation of positions in 2-D -- Reasoning with qualitative representations -- Applications -- Extensions of the basic model -- Relevant related work -- Conclusion.

This book develops, for the first time, a qualitative model for the representation of spatial knowledge based only on locative relations between the objects involved. The core of this book is devoted to the study of qualitative inference methods that take into account the rich structure of space. These methods can be applied to quite a number of areas characterized by uncertain or incomplete knowledge, as for example geographic information systems, robot control, computer-aided architectural design, and natural language information systems.