Hypercube-based Visualization Architecture for Web-based Environmental Geospatial Information Systems
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Iosifescu Enescu, I.; 2Vescoukis, V.; 3Iosifescu Enescu, C.; 4Müller, F.; 5Panchaud, N.H.; 6Hurni, L.
1ETH ZURICH Email: iosifescu@ethz.ch
2ETH ZURICH Email: vvescoukis@ethz.ch
3ETH ZURICH Email: cristina.iosifescu@karto.baug.ethz.ch
4ETH ZURICH Email: fabian.mueller@ethz.ch
5ETH ZURICH Email: panchaud@karto.baug.ethz.ch
6ETH ZURICH Email: lhurni@ethz.ch
Abstract
The geospatial field significantly influences the developments of the environmental domain, including a wide range of geospatial and cartographic information systems such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Multimedia Atlas Information Systems (MAIS) and more recently Web-based GIS (Web-GIS). In this context, we introduce Web-based Environmental Geospatial Information Systems (Web-EGIS) as a special case of Web-GIS, aiming to integrate the functionalities of geospatial information systems with the enormous quantity of specialized, distributed and highly heterogeneous environmental geo-referenced data and services. We define three main characteristics of the Web-EGIS. The first is a generic hypercube-based data organization and visualization. The next characteristic is a standards-based, three-tier service-oriented architecture. The third and last characteristic is the traceability of the architectural and design decisions, for which we introduce the new concept of an ‘Environmental Ap-plication Context’, arguing that not only the functional, but also the non-functional requirements have an important role in defining the architecture, software components and data services of such systems. In a nutshell, a Web-EGIS is characterized by a coherent user experience through the hypercube-based visualization concept, technically supported by a service-oriented architecture that is structured according to an extensive analysis of non-functional requirements. On this basis, we introduce the GeoVITe Platform for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research as a reference implementation of a Web-EGIS with its basic design requirements, integrative hypercube-based visualization for heterogeneous data sources, extended web cartography functionalities, and its de facto system architecture. The concept of the hypercube-based visualization is better transferred in the system architecture by understanding the ‘Environmental Application Context’ of this particular Web-EGIS, which also makes it easier to understand, maintain and enhance. The resulting system is a support platform for research activities in the environmental domain.
Keywords
Web-EGIS; Hypercube-based visualization ; Environmental App Context