Andy Coote and David Maguire

Delivering Geographic Information effectively over Internet/Intranet


Geographical Information Systems have be seen for several years as essential components of organisational information strategies. Most of the current implementations have however concentrated on building databases and providing mapping capabilities. Unfortunately, the cost and complexity of the technology have meant that organisations have been able to deliver the advantages of organising and integrating geographically to only a few of their more technically competent users.

The major advances in networking and especially the emergence of Internet/Intranet standards has already started to ease this problem. The Internet/Intranet offers a relatively low cost, 'industry standard' and comparatively easy to use method of leveraging the value of data in corporate geographical databases. It is now possible to access geographical data servers directly from standard Internet/Intranet browsers located on standard desktop computers. Both simple and sophisticated capabilities are being provided now at a fraction of the cost of only a few years ago.

This paper will outline some of the issues associated with delivering geographical data across the Internet/Intranet. It will discuss approaches adopted for effectively delivering geographical data and processing. There will also be details of some real live examples of how this has been achieved. These will include Visa's US-wide Automatic Teller Machine personal mapping system, Telstra's Australian White Pages mapping system and a Hotel/Restaurant guide to Edinburgh.


Andy Coote, Consultancy Services Director
Dr David J. Maguire, Managing Director

Esri (UK)
23 Woodford Road
Watford
WD1 1PB

Telephone: 01923-210450
Fax: 01923-210739
email: acoote@Esriuk.com
email: dmaguire@Esriuk.com
WWW http://www.Esri.com