Xml-Based Data in Gis As the Popularity of Georss Grows, the Impact on Gis Related Applications and Possibilities Is Also Growing and Changing

XML-BASED DATA IN GIS AS THE POPULARITY OF GEORSS GROWS, THE IMPACT ON GIS RELATED APPLICATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES IS ALSO GROWING AND CHANGING.

With the ever increasing use of specialised Web sites as repositories recent development, is rapidly becoming the format of choice for of reliable, up-to-date and useful information on all manner of ‘geotagging’ everything from earthquake locations to mountain topics, more and more GIS users are turning to the Internet to get bike trails” the information they need, whether it’s for use in their professional GeoRSS-enabled services will make it possible to search using capacity or as a private individual. various geographic criteria. For example, a local authority could make GeoRSS feeds of planned and actual street works available GeoRSS plug-in. through its web site, enabling other organisations involved in street Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a family of XML (eXtensible Mark- works, such as utility companies, to obtain up-to-date information up Language) formats for exchanging news, particularly about web on the location of new road openings. pages or other web content, is used by many dynamic web sites, Estate agents will be able to use GeoRSS feeds to allow prospec- e.g. news sites, ‘blogs’, etc., to provide ‘feeds’ of their new or changed tive buyers to keep up to date with new properties for sale, of a content. These feeds typically contain only basic information, such particular value and in a given area. In addition, all ‘new’ street as author, date, title and brief description, enabling the reader, or an works in a given road could be delivered to the in-boxes of all RSS aggregator service, to decide which materials are worth further interested parties. Other possible uses of GeoRSS envisaged by investigation. Cadcorp include anything that is incident related, such as traffic GeoRSS, which is supported by the OGC, is a simple extension to news, police and fire service incident notifications and local council RSS feeds to describe the location of the information in geographic activity calendar updates. coordinates. As RSS becomes more prevalent as a means of publish- ing and sharing information, GeoRSS is expected to become GPX plug-in increasingly important in enabling applications to request, Designed from the ground up to be the standard XML format for aggregate, and share geographically tagged feeds. exchanging GPS (Global Positioning System) data, the GPX (Global “These new plug-ins for XML-based data – each with very differ- Positioning eXchange) format encodes GPS data (waypoints, routes, ent contents aimed at very different groups of users - will allow the tracks) and enables the data to be shared between software Cadcorp SIS user to easily overlay and correlate the information programs and between web services. The GPX plug-in will allow with his own data in a wide variety of uses,”says Martin Daly, techni- Cadcorp SIS users to read GPX data exported from third party GPS cal director, Cadcorp. “GeoRSS in particular, although a relatively software without conversion or translation.

56 July/August 2006 | GEOconnexion International Magazine Fig 1 Fig 2

FIG.1: Locations of recent environment. different HEIRs. To review the full range of earthquake activity. While the HEIRs information system is knowledge about a particular aspect of the FIG. 2: Tracking locations used both by professionals and enthusiasts to historic environment on a national scale marked. document and analyse the UK’s historic means consulting dozens of separate HEIRs. With GPX being used by an increasing environment, a wide range of HEIRs records MIDAS was developed to help overcome number of software programs and Web has developed independently over the years this interoperability problem by defining the services for GPS data exchange, mapping and due to the fact that, for any given place or ‘units of information’ (or metadata elements) geo-caching, users of the new GPX plug-in for feature of historic environment, there are that are recommended for inclusion in various Cadcorp SIS will be any organisation that uses often many different organisations that might types of record of the UK’s historic environ- GPS and wants to exchange data with other have an interest in it. ment. GPS users, who might not be using the same For example, a prehistoric burial mound Daly explains, “Using the Cadcorp SIS software. The ease of data exchange enabled could be recorded simultaneously by a local MIDAS XML plug-in, historic information users by the GPX plug-in also extends to the authority for development control purposes, such as local authorities - who receive listed- consumer GPS world. by a national body for purposes of legal building data from English Heritage in MIDAS protection, by the landowner for land format - university-based research projects, MIDAS XML Plug-in. management and by a thematic national professional heritage managers and national Developed under the auspices of English survey of sites of a particular type. In addition thematic study groups, etc., will be able to Heritage to support interoperability for the to this diversity of purpose for a given site, no access, share and make best use of the vast UK’s Historic Environment Information two features of a particular type of the historic quantity of historic environment information Resources (HEIRs), MIDAS XML is a set of environment are identical. maintained by a wide variety of national World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)-compli- As a result, in order to achieve a full bodies of record”. ant XML schemas that cover specific informa- picture of the existing knowledge of a single tion categories, such as monuments, events feature in the historic environment, it is often For more information and download: (e.g. investigations), people and spatial data necessary for professionals and enthusiasts http://www.cadcorp.com/resources_digital_ etc., relating to the UK’s national historic alike to draw on information from a variety of mapping/cadcorp_sis_plugins.htm

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