Hypercube-Based Visualization Architecture for Web-Based Environmental Geospatial Information Systems. (30th October 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Enescu, Ionuţ Iosifescu; Vescoukis, Vassilios; Iosifescu Enescu, Cristina M.; Müller, Fabian; Panchaud, Nadia H.; Hurni, Lorenz
• Is Part Of: Cartographic journal. Volume 52:Number 2(2015)
• Page Start: 137
• Page End: 148
• Publication Date: 2015-10-30
• Subjects: web-EGIS -- hypercube-based data exploration -- environmental application context -- design decisions -- non-functional requirements; Cartography -- Periodicals; 526.05
• DOI: 10.1080/00087041.2015.1119469
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0008-7041

Abstract

Abstract : The geospatial field significantly influences the development 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 standard-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 Application Context', arguing that not only the functional but also the non-functional requirements (NFRs) 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 NFRs. On this basis, we introduce the Geodata visualization and interactive training environment (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 to the system architecture by understanding the 'Environmental Application Context' of this particular Web-EGIS, which also makes it easier to maintain and enhance. The resulting system is a support platform for research activities in the environmental domain.