Bénédicte Bucher

The design and implementation of SPIRIT: a spatially aware search engine for information retrieval on the Internet

Much of the information stored on the web contains geographical context, but current search engines treat such context in the same way as all other content. In this paper we describe the design, implementation and evaluation of a spatially aware search engine which is capable of handling queries in the form of the triplet of ⟨theme⟩⟨spatial relationship⟩⟨location⟩. The process of identifying geographic references in documents and assigning appropriate footprints to documents, to be stored together with document terms in an appropriate indexing structure allowing real‐time search, is described. Methods allowing users to query and explore results which have been relevance‐ranked in terms of both thematic and spatial relevance have been implanted and a usability study indicates that users are happy with the range of spatial relationships available and intuitively understand how to use such a search engine. Normalised precision for 38 queries, containing four types of spatial relationships, is significantly higher (p<0.001) for searches exploiting spatial information than pure text search.

Geographic Information Science at the Heart of Europe

Geographic information is increasingly contributed by volunteers via crowdsourcing platforms. However, most tools and methods require a high technical affinity of its users and a good understanding of geographic classification systems. These technological and educational barriers prevent casual users to contribute spatial data. In this chapter we present MAPIT, a method to acquire and contribute complex geographic data. We further introduce the concept of micromapping, the acquisition of geometrically correct geometric data of small geographic entities. MAPIT is a method for micro-mapping with smartphones with high geometric precision. We show that MAPIT is highly accurate and able to reconstruct the geometry of mapped entities correctly.Please check and confirm the author names and initials are correct.

The need for web legend services

This paper addresses the issue of designing efficient on-demand maps in services oriented architectures. Some crucial steps of an on-demand map design process are not supported by todays architectures and may greatly benefit from knowledge that has been formalised by cartographers, like the definition of styles to draw geographical data on the map. Our proposal aims at integrating part of cartographic expertness, mostly semiologic rules, in Web mapping services oriented architectures. It comprises a set of Web services dedicated to facilitating the definition of accurate legends with respect to user objectives and data.

Specifications for User Generated Spatial Content

This paper addresses the issue of quality in the context of collaborative edition of spatial content. The overall approach is grounded on the definition of explicit and adequate specifications for such content, i.e. the data model, the conceptual model, conventions for data acquisition, possible integrity constraints, possible relationships with external reference data. Explicit specifications could be processed to automatically check when different users simultaneously contribute on the same area. Their definition requires expertness, firstly, to ensure spatial content consistency and, secondly, to establish relevant relationships with external reference data. Designing these specifications is not an easy task for contributors. Hence, the focus of this paper is to assist them in this task. We propose a generic process to automatically produce specification items such as feature types, attribute types, and relationship types, including possible relationship types with external reference data from a set of keywords. It exploits information from two different kinds of existing contents: user generated content (like Wikipedia) and more conventional content (like WordNet and NMA databases). It has been applied to keywords found in existing user generated spatial contents.

GeOxygene: Built on Top of the Expertise of the French NMA to Host and Share Advanced GI Science Research Results

Back to the 80s and 90s, researchers at the COGIT laboratory of the French National Mapping Agency often developed their own vector platforms dedicated to their respective research purposes like generalization, integration or 3D. This multiplicity of platforms became an obstacle to many important research activities like capitalizing and sharing. In 2000, based on ISO/OGC standard for data exchange, the COGIT laboratory decided to invest in the development of an ad hoc interoperable GIS platform that would host most of its research developments. This platform, called GeOxygene, was designed to have a rich data model and a genuine programming language to manipulate data. It facilitates the design and prototyping of processes which geographical data model are object oriented. It is also intended to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and programming efforts with other research labs. It is also shared through regular open source releases. This paper highlights the relevance for a research team like COGIT to contribute to Open Source software.

A service to customize the structure of a geographic dataset

This paper deals with the usability of vector geographic data structures We define usability of a geographic representation as the ability to fit the users view, the user application and the user platform, plus the ability to be derived from a data producer dataset and to be maintained in the future if needed Specifying the structure of a usable representation and deriving the corresponding data require specific tools and expertness We propose to assist users in this process by means of a Web-based system able to assist users in specifying and performing a dataset restructuration process The first step is to help users to set their requirements To achieve this goal, we propose a graphical interface to specify differences between an existing data structure and a target data structure The second step is to help users to commit these requirements into a transformation process applied to an existing dataset We propose mechanisms to plan and execute this process and to check its result The system relies on knowledge of existing data structures, platforms grammar rules and typical application schemas The first part of this paper analyses the notion of a data structure and how to specify it The second part describes our proposal.

Integrating structured descriptions of processes in geographical metadata

This paper extends upon a category of information, processes description, and its relevance in metadata about geographic information. Metadata bases about processes are needed because processes are themselves resources to manage. Besides, specific processes participate in the description of other types of resources like data sets. Still, current metadata models lack structured containers for this type of information. We propose a model to build structured descriptions of processes to be integrated in metadata bases about processes themselves or about data sets.

Errata to: Geographic Information Science at the Heart of Europe

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