Abstract This paper describes the architecture of a system, a prototype of which is being developed by the authors at IBM Rome Scientific Centre, providing an interactive approach to the printing process, starting from the input of the basic components (images, texts and graphics) up to the definition and modification of page layout and finally to driving high resolution output devices. The system manages collections of pages, called “documents”; in turn each page is defined as a spatial composition of elementary boxes distributed on different levels. The main characteristics of the system architecture are interactivity, modularity and non‐procedurality (the user has only to describe “what” has to be done, rather “how” to do it).

A rational territorial management requires that all the amount of geographical data (maps, aerophotos, satellite images but also statistics, etc ...) be unified and made accessible to the decisional entities, which can use them as means for an adequate planning of the actions to undertake. Therefore the concept of data base (or DB) and the relative techniques offer the suitable means, as they give to the user a clear view of the data, an access and computational language oriented to the user, and the capability to support in a simple way the process (often heuristic) of solution of the management problems.The extended relational model [1] is adequate for this kind of problems for its simplicity, semantic completeness, and descriptive power. The access language to the DB represents an extension of AQL [2] that, besides supporting the DB management operations and the possibilities of interactive computation of AQL, offers the integration with the geographical operations and data geographical type. The proposal is illustrated by means of a series of examples of inquiry against a geographical DB.