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Development of 3W graphical <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion systems<br />

Dr. Frank Lochter, GIS-coord<strong>in</strong>ator, GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, 14473 Potsdam , Telegrafenberg A51/C6,<br />

Germany, marco@gfz-potsdam.de<br />

Sven Knauer, Application programmer, GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, 14473 Potsdam, Telegrafenberg A51/C6 ,<br />

Germany, sven@gfz-potsdam.de<br />

Problem<br />

The GFZ is a nonuniversitarian, large-scale research centre <strong>in</strong> Germany. It comb<strong>in</strong>es all solid earth science discipl<strong>in</strong>es<br />

<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g geodesy, geology, geophysics, m<strong>in</strong>eralogy and geochemistry, form<strong>in</strong>g a multidiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary research centre. The<br />

facilities <strong>in</strong>clude about 80 workstations and more than 300 PC's <strong>in</strong> the net. The scientific data are stored <strong>in</strong> Relational<br />

Database Management Systems (RDBMS) <strong>in</strong> a client server environment.<br />

Our <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion resources (geoscientific data) often <strong>in</strong>clude spatial components. Tools be<strong>in</strong>g developed to hold and<br />

search this k<strong>in</strong>d of <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion. They must serve the follow<strong>in</strong>g purposes:<br />

Solution<br />

<strong>in</strong>teractive graphical spatial retrieval<br />

<strong>in</strong>teroperable, runn<strong>in</strong>g on microcomputers and workstations<br />

access to distributed data sources<br />

visualization of data stored <strong>in</strong> relational database systems (Sybase)<br />

central adm<strong>in</strong>istration of the tools<br />

The data centre of the GeoForschungsZentrum <strong>in</strong> Potsdam is tasked with the development of an <strong>in</strong>frastructure for<br />

multidicipl<strong>in</strong>ary <strong>in</strong>vestigations of the lithosphere. A metadata system "GEOLIS-GFZ" {1} has been implemented <strong>in</strong><br />

order to store (<strong>in</strong> RDBMS) and f<strong>in</strong>d the data and <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion resources. It is an <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion system about <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion<br />

systems. Standard metadata <strong>format</strong>s like DIF (Directory Interchange Format) are used for the <strong>in</strong>put of metadata.<br />

At the data centre of the GeoForschungsZentrum <strong>in</strong> Potsdam the functionality of WWW-Servers with CGI (Common<br />

Gateway Interface) has been extended via PERL-programs to implement graphical <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion systems. The follow<strong>in</strong>g<br />

applications have been developed:<br />

The "GFZ-Spatial Retrieval" {2} (Snapshot) application is able to retrieve data stored <strong>in</strong> the meta <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion system<br />

"GEOLIS-GFZ". The user can search for objects specify<strong>in</strong>g thematic, spatial and temporal attributes. We've<br />

implemented the possibility to specify a search rectangle on a map background for the spatial retrieval. A geo-thesaurus<br />

(predef<strong>in</strong>ed regions of the world with the correspond<strong>in</strong>g bound<strong>in</strong>g rectangles) helps to f<strong>in</strong>d the region of <strong>in</strong>terest. A<br />

thematic thesaurus has been implemented as source for the thematic attributes, but the specification of free terms is also<br />

possible. First <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion systems us<strong>in</strong>g this functionality are the GFZ-Map-Library and the management of<br />

limnological data.<br />

The "Knowledge Browser" {3} (Snapshot) is a tool to build and explore <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion spaces. Until now it's only a<br />

prototypical solution demonstrat<strong>in</strong>g the retrieval of alphanumeric documents by us<strong>in</strong>g a Virtual Reality based retrieval<br />

<strong>in</strong>terface. The "Knowledge Browser" allows the navigation <strong>in</strong> virtual <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion spaces and the <strong>in</strong>teractive selection of<br />

objectes <strong>in</strong> these spaces.<br />

The "GIS-Glossary" {4} (Snapshot) is a tool to expla<strong>in</strong> GIS-terms. The HTML-pages will be produced "on the fly".<br />

They <strong>in</strong>clude the search term, it's explanation and a picture. The tool can be used for any k<strong>in</strong>d of glossary.<br />

URL's

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