Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2002, Vol. 57 ›› Issue (7s): 44-51.doi: 10.11821/xb20027s007

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Comparison of Three Different Methods to Distribute Spatial Data on the Internet

HUANG Chunlin, LI Xin   

  1. Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, CAS, Lanzhou 730000, China
  • Received:2002-07-20 Revised:2002-10-20 Online:2002-12-25 Published:2002-12-25
  • Supported by:

    Knowledge Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. KZCX2-308-3-7; Knowledge Innovation Project of Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute of CAS, No.CACX2100018

Abstract:

In order to find the best way of distributing spatial data on internet, we distribute the thematic data of Heihe drainage area based on three different WebGIS tools, i.e., DIAL, IMS and Jshape. Compared to these three methods, we conclude that MapObject IMS is a good method to distribute vector map such as ESRI's ArcView shape file and ArcInfo Coverage file. But since there are a lot of remote sensing image data and digital elevation model (DEM) data in these areas, MapObject IMS does not have the capability of distributing grid data. Jshape is only convenient to distribute simple and small vector map. However, DIAL is a very useful tool for distributing grid data. Because of DIAL's effectiveness and compatibility with the well-organized data format HDF, we think that it is the suitable choice to publish the earth scientific dataset by using DIAL on the Internet.

Key words: Heihe drainage basin, WebGIS, spatial data, DIAL, Mapobjects IMS, Jshape