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Internet GIS - One perspective
Where do we see it going in the future?
The word wired is a synonym for electronic sophistication. It's a magazine title. It's a home network of personal computers, scanners, and printers. It's the Internet. Tourists even get wired in vacation spots around the world. They can buy time at an Internet café and browse the net, read their mail, or play interactive games. But at the same time we are marveling at this wired technology, techno-explorers are opening a newer frontier - wireless. Intergraph's expertise in delivering images of maps, and location-related information makes it a natural in this new frontier. People need location-based information in their offices and at home. And people need it even more when they're away, tethered only by airwaves. Our communities of techno-explorers and ingenious customers have merged to bring this powerful location-based capability to wireless devices. Consumers have already been able to receive geospatial information on their PCs at work or at home. And now they can receive location-based information including maps anywhere their wireless device can receive a signal. This allows organizations to distribute their investment and lower the cost per seat even more while at the same time providing more people access to location-based data and services. Programmers recognize JPEG and CGM as common web formats. Now with GeoMedia Web Enterprise, programmers can add WAP - specifically WML (wireless markup language) and WBMP (wireless bitmap) formats - to their toolboxes. AND, people who know how to program products for the desktop are already well along their way toward programming geospatial information for wireless devices. Software specialists appreciate that they can use open component architecture to create wireless location-based applications. And wireless customers appreciate that they can use these services wherever they are - at the office working or at the seashore vacationing. Applications, real user examples Live data - Technology and democracy came together in South Africa's 1999 presidential election. Using GeoMedia, officials posted real-time election results to the Web and projected them onto large screens at the election center and on the Internet. Viewers could see up-to-the-moment results combined with other related data by merely clicking on a specific geographic region. International media coverage from CNN and BBC World showed live election updates from this system. Combined data - To help increase Detroit's economic development and grow its own business, Detroit Edison turned to GeoMedia. Using the Web, potential customers can view detailed information on demographics, available properties, mass transportation, thoroughfares, and more. Searches may be performed by parcel size, existing structure size, or location. Maps, aerial photography, and detailed property descriptions are also available. Analytical data - Another integration and analysis implementation employs GeoMedia's Web capabilities. When Hurricane Floyd threatened the coast of South Carolina, GeoMedia enabled SCDOT officials to survey traffic conditions, road closures, and evacuation routes while tracking the progress of the storm. They analyzed this information and successfully routed 700,000 residents of the South Carolina coast out of harm's way. Accessible data - Often people have to go to the data. Now the data can come to the people. Highway officials in offices across a midwestern state can observe the path of a snowstorm, road conditions, and the location of each snowplow crew on their Intranet. They can monitor the effectiveness of various ice and snow clearing methods. They can also publish selected information on their Internet Web site for the general public. Monitors at highway rest stops also display the current road conditions. Applications such as this one exemplify the realization of n-tier architecture. It means that the ultimate number of users is unlimited. And people can access the most up-to-date storm information - for free - at home - on their personal Web access devices. Advice to the users - benefits of Internet GIS Triangles are the basis for strong physical structures whether they are the pyramids of Egypt or the Hancock building in Chicago. Triangular constructs are also the stuff of strong virtual structures. People and tasks Intergraph introduced the tiered representation of a typical user mix for Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The most sophisticated technical people, the Doers, are experts at capturing data from diverse sources and building a cyber-system. Users of the system analyze the data and use it as a primary decision-making tool. Viewers of GIS data may need a map of a particular subdivision in order to lay (or repair) a water line. They may need to verify the progress of a storm. Viewers are the largest population of people who interface with a GIS.  People/task Hardware When it comes to hardware requirements, the Doers require the most sophisticated and expensive computers. Fortunately, they can serve their data to a large community of users and viewers at a strikingly decreasing cost of hardware. Users require an interactive connection to the server, usually in a networked environment. Viewers, however, are rarely networked, and often rely on web or even wireless access. Since the viewers are the largest population of the system, every additional viewer seat lowers the cost of the overall system.  Hardware Requirements |