Shuji Kitazawa

On extraction of WWW pages with spatial information for mediating their distribution

Maps are expected to play an important role that interfaces help users search on the WWW. There is much area-based information on the WWW, and there are also many service providers that support such information. The implementation of spatial information sharing services is expected to mediate these contents and services. In developing information mediation services, preparing rich contents for the service is one of the main problems. We implemented an agent, that extracts spatial information and carried out an experiment to extracting spatial information automatically using this agent. The agent extracted 23% of eleven thousand two hundred WWW pages using text address information, which is one type of spatial information. We confirmed the accuracy of the extraction manually, and found there was no noise in this case. This result shows the agent can accurately extract text address information, and is therefore very useful.

Map-based information mediation on the web with float coordinate system

Recently maps have been required to play an important role in the user interfaces of information discovery from the WWW. For the further implementation of spatial information sharing service. We adopt a map-based mediation architecture, in where are three roles of contents provider, mediator and requester, to integrate the Web contents and their services. In this paper, we propose the basic concept of the service and an idea to solve its technical problem. Significant challenge in this topic is the establishment of interoperability among a variety of contents providers. Aiming at strict data conversion, we propose hyper structural location management with float coordinate system, which defines the location of a content in relativistic location of specific map. By following the hyperlinked relationship, registered map should be found in specific location with its base coordinate system. In addition, hand-written deformed map can be managed in the same way. We designed the basic specification of spatial information sharing system with float coordinate system and developed the application as a mediator system.

Environment for Spatial Information Sharing

This paper concerns Web-based spatial and local information sharing for digital cities. There are various kinds of spatial information such as geographical maps, illustrated maps, railroad maps and so on around us. Our system provides an environment in which the general users can submit such contents on their favorite map and in which they can view contents submitted from more than two providers on their favorite map. In our system, all spatial information submitted by citizens is linked in special index tables. This paper also shows digital city applications of the presented environments.

Spatial information sharing with patch-working of feature drawings

While many people use digital maps in their car navigation systems or on the Web, many potential users are still overwhelmed by spatial information sharing. They are nervous about maintaining maps, which need to be kept up to date. We discuss the problem of maintaining geodata and describe the basic concept of MW (Marche World) and one of its groupware applications. Its ideas of spatial information headers and a floating coordinate system conform to the access control architecture for charging for spatial contents and enable the innovative utilization of geodata. Charging contents could not only reduce the initial installation cost, but could also continuously charge various users an appropriate price. We developed a prototype system for a police traffic department. Its multi-resolution data of drawings, photos and maps is shared and kept alive among a variety of organizations by the virtual workflow of the maintenance.