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Track: Information Access and the Internet
Mark Dostie
MacDonald Dettwiler
13800 Commerce Parkway
Richmond, BC V6V 2J3
CANADA
Telephone: 604-278-3411
Fax: 604-278-2936
E-mail: dostie@mda.ca
Landscape Spatial Browser-WWW Client for SDE
Defining Issue: In order to take advantage of the flexibility and low cost of WWW-based distribution of spatial data sets, organizations need a platform-independent, universally deployable GIS data viewer for integration with standard WWW browsers. GIS Solution: In conjunction with the development of the LandData BC spatial data infrastructure for the Province of British Columbia, Canada, a Java-based browser called Landscape has been developed that allows direct display of a variety of GIS data formats in conjunction with standard WWW browsers. By offloading the server from user graphic interactions, Landscape allows the spatial data infrastructure to support very large numbers of users (10,000). The Landscape browser works as an integral part of the LandData BC spatial data infrastructure. It provides built-in support for connection to metadata repositories, integration of spatial and attribute information, and an API for easy deployment for different applications. Software: Landscape is implemented
as a Java applet and is compliant with OpenGIS and Netscape One standards, and Java script, HTTP, FTP, and TCP/IP protocols. It directly supports ArcInfo E00 and SDE shape data. Landscape provides for a full vector-based presentation of GIS data. Standard manipulation of the vector GIS data, such as zoom, pan, feature selection, and interactive definition region of interest, is done within the applet on the desktop. Users can graphically define regions of interest using free-form polygons, rectangles, buffer zones on features, and map feature boundaries. Regions of interest generate spatially based queries to the server. Raster images in gif, TIFF, and GEOTIFF formats can underlay the displayed graphics and are fully geographically registered with the GIS date. Keywords: SDE, ArcInfo, browser, spatial browser, WWW, Netscape, Internet, Landscape, Java, applet, LandData BC, spatial data infrastructure, land information infrastructure
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