Abstract
Diversity of practices and methods in all fields is the basis of emerging standards in different areas. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has standardized eXtensible Markup Language (XML) as a very convenient tool to structure data for numerous purposes. OGC standardized Geography Markup Language (GML), which is an XML-based language, to store and transport geospatial data. Despite the fact that it is a medium to separate georeferenced data from presentation, GML by itself is not intended to visualize geo-referenced data. One of the solutions to visualize GML is to use eXtensible Style sheet Language Transformation (XSLT) as transformer to a visualization language such as Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG). Unlike the usual procedure, the major advantage of the proposed approach is that the transformation process is shifted to the client-side. XSLT as a median language is a general-purpose transformation tool. As it is not specialized for map cartography, map making process is very complicated using this primitive language. To facilitate transformation process, in this research, XSLT is extended to meet cartography requirements. Furthermore, a graphical user interface (XCartoT) is designed to set all the map properties interactively. XCartoT provides a user-friendly interface for cartographers to automatically generate necessary XSL files for their intended maps. The goal of this research is to develop a major step towards the geospatial Web.
Highlights
The tendency towards geospatial services is incessantly growing among people from all different walks of life and becoming a non-detachable part of everyday life
What shapes the foundation of this paper is that XSLT is not designed to produce visual maps from Geography Markup Language (GML)
The difference is that instead of drawing tools provided in these environments, the user should write XSLT or Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) codes, which are very complicated and time-consuming
Summary
The tendency towards geospatial services is incessantly growing among people from all different walks of life and becoming a non-detachable part of everyday life. Web 2.0 is associated with concepts such as data/information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration Prior to this revolution, users were limited to use the available content, whereas Web 2.0 sites allowed the users to interact and collaborate in social networks with user-generated content. Since writing code in a somehow strange language like XSLT may be bothersome for non-specialists, a graphical user interface called XCartoT is designed and implemented to facilitate map making process for different classes of users. The ultimate goal of this paper is to illustrate the essentiality for standardization organizations and institutes to force Web browsers to provide users with embedded capabilities to visualize geo-referenced data on the browsers both on computers and mobile devices
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