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The Geospatial Service Web: Ubiquitous Connectivity with Geospatial Services
Author(s) -
Gong Jianya,
Wu Huayi
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
transactions in gis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.721
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9671
pISSN - 1361-1682
DOI - 10.1111/tgis.12010
Subject(s) - geospatial analysis , geospatial pdf , computer science , world wide web , geospatial metadata , data science , cloud computing , ubiquitous computing , geography , human–computer interaction , meta data services , remote sensing , metadata repository , metadata , operating system
With the overwhelming penetration of information and communication technology (ICT), geospatial-related data, information and knowledge can be delivered to end users at low cost, no matter where, when, and who the end users are. Various smart phones, increasingly numerous over the last decade, have become not only mobile interfaces delivering geospatial information services to users when walking, camping or at work, but are also ubiquitous sensors that collect geospatial data, locational as well as social. On the back end, new computing paradigms such as grid computing, high-performance computing, cloud computing, etc. expand computing capacities for fast processing, analysis and transmission of geospatial information to support smart decisions. On the front end, while enjoying improved mobile geospatial information services, people are demanding more information and better applications. Thus, these technologies link both the wired and wireless infrastructure together, enabling a web that maintains broad connectivity from people (collecting data) to people (being served), from data acquisition to information sharing, and from data processing to knowledge diffusion. This big picture is referred to as the Geospatial Service Web (GSW), or ubiquitous connectivity supported by ICT and geospatial services (Gong et al. 2009). GSW represents a paradigm shift in that geospatial information now penetrates daily life across distance and time. This paradigm shift in geospatial technologies will enable yet more breakthroughs with new breadth and depth going forward. In a technical sense, GSW is a web service-based virtual platform that integrates geospatial resource acquisition, intelligent information processing, and knowledge discovery services, through a high performance computing infrastructure fed with data from ubiquitous sensors. The first seven articles in this issue provide an in-depth investigation of GSW, addressing various aspects of GSW from theoretical reviews to empirical studies that demonstrate how GSW extends the reach of geospatial information. These seven articles also expose more general and longstanding problems given the complexity of spatial datasets and analysis, as well as the necessity and benefits of sharing spatial data flexibly and securely, within the GSW framework. The essential architecture of GSW is service-oriented with a central component: the registry center. It is critically important that a registry center assists end users to discover the best service for their applications. A registry center should not only collect bs_bs_banner