2016 International Conference on Computer, Control, Informatics and its Applications
Spatial Co-location Pattern Discovery Using Multiple
Neighborhood Relationship Function
Erna Piantari1, Saiful Akbar2
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
Institut Teknologi Bandung
Indonesia
erna.piantari14@gmail.com1, saiful@informatika.org2
Abstract— Co-location pattern discovery is a process to find a
subset of Boolean spatial feature that is frequently located in the
same geographic area. There are some approaches have used for
this process. Mostly co-location mining discovery has been done
for point type and the feature has the same domain. But in reality
spatial data has three types, which are point, line, and polygon.
In this paper, we tried to discover spatial co-location pattern that
involves three types of data spatial from a different domain. We
propose multiple neighborhood relationship function to find
neighborhood relation from the multiple types and multiples
domains of data spatial and apply co-location mining with
joinless approach to find co-location pattern. The evaluation of
our proposed method that using real data shows that multiple
neighborhood relationship function is needed to extract the
correct and complete spatial relationship to the data that have
expansion of the data types and heterogeneous data source.
Keywords— spatial co-location; co-location pattern; spatial
mining; spatial neighborhoos relationship
I. INTRODUCTION
Spatial data mining or spatial knowledge discovery is a
process of extracting knowledge, spatial relations and spatial
pattern that cannot be extracted directly from a spatial dataset
[1]. Along with the fast growth of data spatial, the process of
spatial data mining is important to do. One of the processes in
spatial data mining is spatial co-location pattern discovery.
Spatial co-location pattern is a subset of Boolean feature that
is frequently located in some geographic area [2]. Spatial co-
location pattern may give important insights for many
application. For example, in ecology and environment
management application. In that area, we can use it to know
the spatial object that can be found close to damaged
environment frequently (i.e. fire, flood). In transportation
application, G. Kiran et al used co-location pattern to analyze
the factors that cause accidents and give remedies.
There are things to be aware of to discover co-location
patterns. First, finding a pair of spatial objects that have spatial
co-location relationship. We called this pair as co-location
instance. Neighborhood relationship function is required to
find co-location instance. This function will be implemented
for determining the co-location relationship of an existing
object in the spatial dataset. The neighborhood function can be
defined using graph theory as a connected, adjacent or
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connectivity matrix by using the size of the displacement
distance, Euclidean distance or a combination of them.
Determination of neighborhood function is based on the
semantics of the domain data. The second one is how to
identify row co-location instance. Row co-location instance is
a clique co-location instance that may consist of more than
one pair of co-location instance. The identification process of
row co-location instance can be difficult because the objects in
the spatial domain are continuous [2].
Several approaches have been used to discover spatial co-
location patterns, one of them is with Joinless Approach. This
approach has many advantages compared to the other
approaches, which is the excess do not require a reference to
establish relations of the neighborhood, make it can be used
for spatial data that cannot be clustered well and the
complexity is better than Join Approach method. This
approach uses a model to generate star neighbor partition of
neighborhood relations and also been evaluated to process
spatial objects of type point and give a better result than the
Join Approach method.
A. Problems
1) Expansion of the data types
In reality, spatial data has three types of data, which are
points, lines, and polygons. However, co-location pattern
discovery involving three types still not widely applied. The
difference of co-location discovery on the type point with the
other type is the determination of neighborhood functions. In
previous research have been conducted co-location pattern
mining involving all spatial types to build a framework using a
buffer function. Buffer function is used to generate relation of
spatial object [4].With this approach, we must consider the
size of the buffer of spatial objects. However, buffering
operation to all type of data is not efficient. For point type, the
other approach that can be used is generating the
neighborhood relationship using near distance function. The
near distance function is a function that calculates the distance
of each object to other near object and generates a distance
matrix. By calculating the distance of near object, we can
determine the relationship between two point objects. This
approach is more efficient than buffer operation for point type.
Therefore, the determination of neighborhood function has to
consider the type of spatial data.
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 2) Heterogeneous Data Source
As mentioned earlier, the determination of the
neighborhood function should be based on the domain
semantics of data processed. At the same database, semantic
differences of each feature will probably require different
neighborhood functions. This will often happen on a spatial
dataset consisting of different data types (points, lines or
polygons). Therefore, we need an approach that allows
different neighborhood relation functions for each feature in
the dataset.
In this study, co-location pattern mining will be done
using all types of spatial objects (points, lines, and polygons).
Materialize neighborhood relation process will use several
different functions for each feature. Furthermore, co-location
pattern mining is done by Joinless approach that has proved
effective to look for co-location patterns in the data that do not
have a reference feature and cannot be clustered properly [2].
B. Contributions
Base on the problems above, our contributions on this
paper are:
1) Propose multi neighborhood function to find spatial
neighborhood relation in dataset that involve three type of
data with various domain data
2) Apply Joinless approach to discovery spatial co-location
pattern in dataset that involve three type of data spatial
3) Conduct experiments to evaluate the proposed use real
data.
The rest of the paper is organized in the following way:
Chapter II and III of this paper present related work and the
proposed solution for the defined problem. In Chapter IV,
implementation and result of discovery co-location pattern
using real data. The conclusion is presented in Chapter V.
II. RELATED WORK
In this section, we discuss the basic concept and several
works related to the topic of this paper.
A. Co-location Spatial
Co-location of spatial pattern describes a pattern that
indicates the existence of subsets of a set Boolean features of
spatial data whose members often appear frequently in the
same geographic area. The pattern described represents the
relationship between the events that occurred at a different
location but close together.
There are several approaches that can be used to find
spatial co-location pattern, i.e. spatial statistics and data
mining approach [5][6]. A spatial statistical approach using
spatial correlation calculations to classify the relationship
between the different spatial features. The calculation includes
the chi-square tests, correlation coefficient, and regression
models.
Co-location mining approach is an algorithm that is used
to generate the entire pattern and rules of co-location that has a
value of prevalence and conditional probabilities above the
minimum value prevalence and minimum conditional
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probability determined [2]. In the co-location algorithms
mining, every data will be initialized to a collection of co-
location which has a size of k = 1, k is the number of members
of the collection of the co-location. Next will be raised co-
location pattern which has a size of k = 2 and so on up to k =
the number of features or approaching the number of features
contained in the data. For any size of k> 1, participation index
value will be calculated and will be used as interestingness
measure of co-location pattern. Participation index value can
be obtained by calculating the participation ratio (PR) with the
following formula [5][6][8]:
(1)
(2)
Yan Huang and Pungseng Zhang has developed a framework
co-location pattern mining using clustering approach [7]. This
approach suitable for data that can be clustered properly.
Seung Kwan kim et al constructed a framework for co-
location pattern mining using transaction based approach, and
employs maximal cliques as transaction type dataset [9]. This
approach suitable for data that has an object reference. For
example to discover co-location pattern in data cancer image.
Venkatesan et al used participation index as interest measure
[8]. For data that cannot be clustered and doesn’t have object
reference, Soung Ji Yoo, and Shashi Shekhar has developed
joinless approach to co-location pattern mining [2]. This
approach implements star neighbor partition to avoid join
process while join process needs high cost computation.
B. Neighborhood Relation
Nearest neighbor search is a fundamental process in
machine learning and data mining [9]. Various methods have
been carried out to find the nearest neighbors of spatial data.
One simple method is using the distance value of each object
to another object. Another method used to find the relation
between spatial objects is the spatial query for topology
relation.
1) Distance Relation
Distance relation is a relation that defines how far a certain
object to another object. Distance relation function results in
real value that can be calculated. There are some distance
functions that often used to find a neighborhood relation. The
simple one is Euclidean distance function. Another distance
function is Manhattan [11].
2) Topology Relation
In GIS, topology is the term used to describe the
geometric characteristics of object which do not change under
transformations such as stretching or bending and are
independent of any co-ordinate system [12] [13]. Topology is
related to spatial data, consists of three elements (adjacency,
containment, and connectivity) which describes the geometry
relationship that exists between spatial object [14].
Clementini has defined a formal description of topology
relations using predicates function [15]. There are eight
topology relations:
1) Disjoint
The disjoint relation is true if there is no intersection
between two geometries object.
2) Equal
Equal(A,B) is true, if there are intersection between
interior of A and interior of B, no intersection between
exterior of A and interior of B , no intersection between
boundary of A and exterior of B, and no intersection
between interior of A and interior of B. In other words,
equal relation is true if two objects of geometry have the
same type and have identical coordinate.
3) Intersection
The intersection is opposite of disjoint. This relation will
be true if there is an intersection between two objects of
geometry.
4) Touch
Touch relation is true if there is no intersection that
involves interior of both of object. One object has to be a
line, polygon, multi-line or multi-polygon.
5) Crosses
This relation is true if there is an intersection that results
from the object which is the smallest dimension.
6) Overlap
This relation will be true if there are intersections between
two object that have the same dimension.
7) Within
This relation is true if the whole first object is within the
second object.
8) Contains
Contains relation is opposite of within relation. This relation is
true if the whole second object is within the first object.
III. THE PROPOSE SOLUTION
There are five main phases to mining co-location pattern:
Dataset preparation, materialize neighborhood relation,
generate candidate co-location, filtering and generate co-
location pattern (Fig.1).
Materialize Generate co-
Spatial neighborhood location pattern
dataset relations candidate
Generate co-location
filtering
pattern
Fig. 1. Co-location mining process
Our solution for the problem on this paper is using
different relation function for different data type and domain.
Therefore, the research on this paper focuses on materialize
neighborhood relation phase. Input for materialize
neighborhood relation is data spatial vector (point, line and
polygon) with the heterogeneous data source. The output of
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materialize neighborhood is co-location instance that will
process to the next process.
We propose three materialize neighborhood relation
operations: kd-tree construction, buffering operation and
topology relation (Fig. 2). Kd-tree and buffering operation
specifically used to search object relation that defined by
distance.
Kd-tree
buffering
Generate star Co-location
Data spasial neighborhood instance
Topology relation
using spatial query
Fig. 2. Materialize neighborhood relations for expansion of data types
A. Distance neighborhood relation
The process to find the nearest neighbor usually done by
calculating the distance of each object to all other objects that
exist in the dataset. The nearest neighbors of an object
reference are obtained by looking for other objects that have a
distance value within the certain threshold. Complexity to
calculate the distance of all objects in this way is O (N) where
N is the size of the object involved (n x n).
3) Using Kd-tree
For large data, searching neighborhoods by building a
distance matrix (n x n) is not effective, since the object at a
great distance can be identified is not the nearest neighbor so
that the complete calculation is not required. Therefore, we
propose to be built index kd-trees. This index is used to find
the nearest neighbor object of spatial data, in the form of a
point with a radius. This method quite effective to locate the
object nearest neighbor for data with a lot of the number of
rows but low dimensions [10].
In Fig. 3, the structure of kd-trees index constructed by
dividing each area on the median value of the data point.
Zoning performed on the y-axis and x in turn and will stop
when the amount of data in one little area or 1. From the
structure of the data index kd-trees, with radius r, the object of
the object q nearest neighbor is the data residing on the
territory of which passes through the line circle with radius r is
region 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The complexity of the nearest
neighbor search using kd-trees index is O (log n). It is more
effective than calculate all distance and search neighbor object
with minimum distance.
Fig. 3. Illustration of searching nearest neighbor using Kd-tree structure [9]
As the illustration on Fig. 3, the nearest neighbor that
success to be generated by kd-tree did not have certain distance
value from object reference q. So, we have to calculate the the relation on any feature of the data is based on a formal
distance between an object reference and the nearest neighbor. definition by Eliseo Clementini, et al. [14].
We used Euclidean or Manhattan distance function, it depends
on the requirement. Figure 4 is an algorithm to materialize Generation co-location instance is done in one operation
neighborhood relation using kd-tree. function of topological relations in all spatial objects in certain
features. Operating results from the relation function are
Get co-location instance using kd-tree
Boolean values true and false. For example:
S : spatial dataset
Input r : radius for search nearest neighbor A and B are spatial objects,
minDistance : threshold
f (A, B): topological relations function,
colocationInstance : a pair of spatial object as a co-
Output
location instance if f (A, B) = true then A and B are co-location instance
tree : structure of kd-tree Technically, topology relation can be generated by query
Variable I : index of S spatial operation.
NN : list of nearest neighbor using kdtree
Process Base on the explanation of problem solution, distance
1. tree = kdtree(S) function, and topology relation function can be alternative of
2. for i to S neighborhood relation function. Table I presented the
3. NN = getNearestPoint(r, tree, i) alternative relational function that can be used for points, lines,
4. for n in NN and polygons.
5. if (getDistance(n,i) < minDistance)
6. colocationInstance.add(n,i)
7. end if TABLE I. NEIGBORHOOD RELATION FUNCTION
8. end for
9. end for Alternative Relation Functions (A,B)
Spatial
Fig. 4. Materialize neighborhood relation for point using kd-tree Spatial Topology relations
object Distance
object B Inter- Contain
A relation equal touch cross overlap within
section -ed
4) Buffering
point point kd-trees √ √
In contrast to point data types, distance function can be point line buffer √ √ √
directly used to find distance relation for polygons and lines. point polygon buffer √ √ √ √
Therefore, we use buffer operation to generate distance relation Line line buffer √ √ √ √ √ √ √
for polygon and line. H. Xiong and Shekar (2004) has applied Line polygon buffer √ √ √ √
buffer operation for co-location mining with extended data [4]. polygon polygon buffer √ √ √ √ √
Fig. 5 shows algorithm materialize neighborhood relation using
buffer operation.
Materialize neighborhood process will be illustrated below.
co-location instance using buffering Consider Fig. 6 is a dataset that consists of three type of data:
S : spatial dataset C1 is a polygon, B1 is a line, A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5 are
Input r : radius for buffering
points. Neighborhood functions are used is presented in Table
TopologiQuery : topology function
colocationInstance : a pair of spatial object as a co- II.
Output
location instance
bufferZone : new polygon as a result of buffering
Neighborhood relation between point and point is
operation generated using distance function. It represents by line. A1
Variable
n : index of bufferZone
and A2 have a line between, so A1 and A2 is a pair of co-
location instance. Buffering zone has created to line and
I : index of S
polygon. A3 is within B1’s buffering zone, A4 is within B1’s
Process
10. bufferZone = SpatialQueryBuffering(r,S) buffering zone and C1’s buffering zone, A5 is within C1’s
11. for n in bufferZone buffering zone. Therefore (A3, B1), (A4, B1), (A4, C1) and
12. for i in S (A5, C1) are pairs of co-location instance.
13. if (TopologiQuery(bufferZonen,i))
14. colocationInstance.add(n,i)
15. end if
16. end for
17. end for
Fig. 5. Materialize neighborhood relation using buffering

5) Topology relation
The functions in relation topology can help to find a
relationship between two or more objects of spatial points,
lines or polygons. In addition to the data domain, spatial data Fig. 6. Dataset for illustration
type determines the function of topology relationships that can
be used to generate object spatial relationships. Determining

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 TABLE II. MATERIALIZE NEIGHBORHOOD ILLUSTRATION pattern that has the largest participation index is ‘area with
Object 1 Object 2 Neighborhood function Co-location Instance high population’, ‘river’ with pi = 0.906. This value indicates
Point Point Distance (A1,A2) that river and high population has strong co-location
Point Polygon buffering and within (A4, C1), (A5, C1) relationship. Fig 7. shows mapping river and area with high
Point Line buffering and intersection (A4, B1), (A3, B1) population and Fig. 8 shows co-location instance that was
Polygon Line buffering and intersection (B1,C1)
generated by co-location mining. In Fig 8, area id= 6 is not
co-location instance because there is no intersection between
Furthermore, Star neighbor was generated from co-location
that area and river.
instance. Table III is a star neighbor from the co-location
instance in Table II. Star neighbor will process to discover co-
location pattern using joinless approach algorithm by Soung Ji
Yoo and Shashi Shekhar [2].
IV. IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULT
In this section, we present the implementation to discover
co-location pattern using real data. The tools used for
implementation are QGIS for displaying the result, PostGIS to
store the data and execute the spatial query, and Python 2.4 as
a primary language. Fig. 7. Mapping river and high population area

B. Data
This implementation used three type of data that have
feature variation. Table IV provides a list of data that be used.

TABLE III. DATASET WITH FEATURE VARIATIONS

Feature Data Type
Garbage dumb, market, epidemic of Point
Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF)
Market, garbage dumb, Point
River Line
Fig. 8. Mapping co-location instance of river and high population area with
Level of population area, level of polygon pi=0.906
health service area
Another rule is a market and big garbage dump that has pi=
C. Materialize neighborhood 0.75. Fig. 9 shows co-location instance of this rule. Relation
Consider the alternative of neighborhood relation in Table object is represented as lines.
I, this implementation uses a neighborhood relation in Table
V.

TABLE IV. NEIGHBORHOOD RELATION FUNCTION FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Data 1 Data 2 Operation Neighborhood
relation
Point Point Kd-trees Euclidean distance
Point (all data
Create river
that have point Line (river) Within
buffer
type)
Polygon (all
Create river
Line (river) data that have Intersection
buffer Fig. 9. Co-location relation of market and big garbage dump with pi=0.75
polygon type)
Polygon (all Polygon (all
data that have data that have - Equal Fig. 10 shows that co-location relation between the
polygon type) polygon type) epidemic of DHF and middle garbage dump is low. The value
Polygon Point - Within of this rule is 0.28.

D. Co-location pattern
The implementation of co-location mining was performed
several times using different participation index. The Co-
location mining using participation index 0.45, 0.40, 0.35,
0.30, and 0.25 product co-location pattern with maximal
length was 5. Therefore, we used 0.45 as participation index.
The co-location pattern mining generated 174 rules. The

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Fig. 10. Co-location relation of epidemic of DHF and middle garbage dumb
with pi = 0.28
V. EVALUATION
The evaluation process is conducted in two conditions:
A. Completeness
Completeness is an indicator that all pattern that has been
generated is complete. There is no loss pattern. To fill this
condition, the materialize neighborhood relation has to
generate all relation in the dataset. Utilizing correct relation
function for all feature in dataset done for generating complete
relation for each feature. Furthermore, generated star neighbor
was done without loss any relation.
B. Correctness
Correctness is an indicator that all pattern that has been
generated is correct. This condition has been filled by filtering
process. Applying clique filtering and prevalence filtering in
joinless approach co-location mining, assured that all pattern
that has been generating has filled this condition. Futhermore,
co-location pattern result of implementation evaluated by
participation index value. Base on human judgment using
visulization of each pattern, co-location pattern result with it’s
participation index value could be accpetable.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper, we did co-location pattern mining with the
expansion of data types (point, line and polygon) and
heterogeneous data sources. With three alternatives of
neighborhood relation, we materialize neighborhood relations
for point, line and polygon. Applying different function for
each feature has become a solution to obtain complete and
correct relations for a dataset with the expansion of data type
and heterogeneous data source. In the future, the co-location
mining problem should be investigated for is about
hierarchical relation conditions.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by Sekolah Teknik Elektro
dan Informatika, Institut Teknologi Bandung.
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