Development of cartographic styling tool to support geospatial data interoperability

Cartographic styling is a technique used to present geographic data layers in various ways, and controls the appearance of geospatial data. Current practices used to maintain and store cartographic styling are through stylesheet formats, such as Styled Layer Descriptor, Esri layer file, and QGIS Style. However, the use of these formats in current geospatial applications is limited, especially in cross-platform applications. Therefore, a geospatial data format called GeoPackage has been used in this study to provide a new technique of maintaining cartographic styling, apart from the current practices. GeoPackage is an emerging geospatial data format introduced by Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), with features including open-standard, independent, portable, robust, and cross-platform applications. In this study, a styling extension for GeoPackage was designed and developed to support the storage of styling data. The development of styling extension involves creation of data tables that is styling data model into the existing GeoPackage data model. The main function of the styling data model is to store styling records for geographic data layers within the GeoPackage. The capabilities of the new data model were tested in cross-platform applications including Windows, Linux, and Mac operating system. The testing was limited to vector data types such as point, line, and polygon, which represent geographic data layers. Results show that GeoPackage with the built-in styling extension is capable to store styling data, which can be loaded to cross-platform applications without the need for format conversion. In addition, the extension stores styling records together with the geographical data layers in a single file format (i.e. *.gpkg), in contrast to the use of other stylesheets, which store styling records in separate file format. This is possible because GeoPackage is a cross-platform geospatial data format that supports interoperability and thus, only requires single file format. Finally, this study successfully explores the capability of GeoPackage data format in maintaining and storing cartographic styling

Geopackage as future ubiquitous GIS data format: a review

The emerging geospatial technologies in earth and space science informatics have led to the advancement in developing international standards for geospatial interoperability. In the last few years, two main trends are making disruptions in geospatial applications; mobile and context sharing. Geospatial data format used in mobile GIS to support advance mobile application is challenged. This is due to the lack of interoperability, open-standard, cross platform and standard APIs for access and management. For instance, most mobile GIS developments are application-dependent, contains redundant geospatial data, consume large storage capacity, and require custom applications for data translation. Based on these issues, new OGC file format named GeoPackage will enable greater geospatial data sharing on mobile and web platform. This data format is an open standard, non-proprietary, platform-independent, container for distribution, and direct use of all kinds of geospatial data will increase cross-platform interoperability, geospatial applications and web services. This presents a comprehensive review of mobile GIS hence, the concept of GeoPackage as a modern geospatial tool was discussed, while its relevance in contemporary geospatial technology are highlighted

Web Visualization of 3D Strata Objects based on CityJSON and LADM

Owing to population growth in Malaysia, there have been significant stratified subsurface and aboveground developments, particularly in densely populated areas, posing a challenge to the current land administration system and the urge to constantly improve. Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) provides a relatively generic spatial representation model for a variety of spatial units, such as 2D land parcels and 3D legal spaces around structures and utilities. As a result of standardization, the LADM data model becomes more flexible, making spatial data management easier. On top of that, 2D-based cadastral systems experience challenges when it comes to documenting, handling, and visualizing the spatial extent of vertically stratified cadastral spaces. 3D strata object visualization is typically represented using third-party software that requires professionals and limits the number of users of cadastre data. The necessity for a 3D visualization platform has been realized by many researchers. A number of 3D Cadastral prototypes have been developed in several countries, including Australia, Russia, and Indonesia. Moreover, 3D visualization improves user communication, decision-making, and the management and facilitation of land information systems. This paper attempts to expand the depiction of those strata objects in 3D by implementing CityJSON based encoding. The focus is mainly on the visualization of the 3D strata parcels above ground, and CityJSON data format for 3D spatial data modelling, and to link the 3D Strata Viewer with the database (legal information) of the 3D parcel using a web-based platform based on LADM Country Profile. This paper describes the implementation of the conceptual model of strata objects based on the Malaysian LADM Country Profile for the representation of spatial and non-spatial strata data. Tools such as FME as data manipulation and conversion and Ninja to handle and visualize 3D strata objects in a browser. The work demonstrates the development of Strata Application Domain Extension (ADE) of CityJSON within LADM. The viewer is able to display all the inquiries about strata such as ownerships, administrative and spatial source, rights, restrictions, and responsibilities (RRR). The developed ADE offers different insights for the strata objects management especially in the case of the Malaysian scenario