Geo-Multi-Agent System Based Webmapping Approach Using Multiple Representation and Generalisation Driven by Domain Ontology

Abstract

Geographic Information (GI) is currently available at any time, from anywhere on the surface of the earth, for any person connected to internet. Some applications of design, implementation, generation and dissemination of maps on the web are recognized as “Webmapping” application, geographic web services or more generally on demand-map making tools. All these web applications aims the satisfaction of user needs by providing personalized maps in a fast response time with a good quality. However, the complexity and diversity of aspects taking into account have lead researchers to focus on one aspect at the expense of others. Consequently, few works have addressed all these aspects simultaneously. The authors propose in this paper, a Webmapping approach organized into two main tasks: (1) query analysis driven by domain ontology in analyzing a query launched by a user on a web browser and (2) map generation process. The first step allows extracting and formalizing user needs through two map determinants factors: the Level of Detail (LoD) and Point of View (PoV) and the second, exploit an hybrid approach “Multi Representation and Generalization” in storing and generating geographical data with integrating Multi-Agent technology in all steps of processing. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposal, a first tool prototype implementing our approach is so developed using a geographic vector dataset provided by national cartographic agency.