Introduction

S-Distance is a software being developed in the Laboratory of Spatial Analysis, GIS and Thematic Mapping in the Department of Planning and Regional Development (DPRD) at University of Thessaly in Greece. The sole developer of the project is Stavros Sirigos, under the close supervision of assistance professor Yorgos N. Photis.

S-Distance is a standalone Spatial Decision Support System, mainly focused on location-allocation analysis. While still being in an early stage, the software is functional and has been tested on many classical Operation Research instances, as well as on several real-world problems. S-Distance is currently being created using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 and is intended to be used for educational purposes only.

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Location-allocation Analysis

• S-Distance offers a number of heuristics to solve classical location-allocation discrete and network problems, including:

• p-median
• p-center
• maximal covering
• multi-objective

• In the current version of the software, implemented solution techniques include:

• greedy and randomized algorithms
• local search heuristics
• metaheuristics
• lagrange relaxation

• S-Distance can import Dbase (*.dbf) databases with network/point topology

• All Pairs Shortest Paths calculation using Dijkstra's (2-ary heap) or Floyd's algorithms, for network problems.

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Spatial Decision Support

S-Distance is an independent Spatial Decision Support System, which incorporates an interactive solution process within a simplified GIS framework. S-Distance offers:

• a simple, yet effective graphical user interface (GUI)

• interactivity during algorithm execution / visualization of the solution process

• dynamic graphical support of the generated and/or modified solutions

• straight-forward creation and evaluation of different solutions (both numerically and graphically)

• results export in field format

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Future Development

The current version of S-Distance is 0.7. There are many features that have not been implemented yet and existing features need further development and refinement. A beta version is available at the Download section. The final version (1.0) of S-Distance will provide:

• improvement of current models and algorithms

• implementation of additional models and algorithms

• support for user DLL's of custom made models and / or algorithms

• improvement of the GUI, SDSS support and overall functionality and performance

• architecture modifications, in order to support larger problem instances

• GIS integration

• improvements and additions based on user suggestions

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