Software Strategy: Online Maps - Programs serve up geospatial data through Web browsers

摘要

The emergence of web gis has greatly changed the way we access mapping information. The Web is becoming a portal for GIS functionality and data distribution, primarily because it's the most cost-effective way to reach a broad audience and give it access to geospatial data. Broadband Internet connections are fast enough to download even massive amounts of geospatial data. The biggest benefit of Web GIS applications is that they allow maps to be displayed and queried with any standard Web browser. Applications can access Web services through Web protocols such as HTTP and XML, and users don't need to worry how the application was created. They just know that they can sit down at their computer, fire up their standard Web browser and find the maps they need.