Study of spatial information service methods with active retrieval mechanisms and their applications to virtual city construction

Communication areas and electronic malls are expanding every year. Recently, digitized maps, satellite images, and other spatial information based on the daily lives of citizens have been emphasized as a part of the role fulfilled by spatial information in cyberspace. The problem of providing spatial information via the Internet is one of managing spatial and attribute data for spatial information efficiently, and providing the information in a flexible fashion. Therefore, in this article the authors propose a method for providing spatial information. The method's characteristics include uniform management of spatial and attribute data using object mechanisms for the spatial data, as well as an active retrieval mechanism that makes it possible to provide spatial information in the optimum media format for the characteristics of the terminal. In addition, by using the proposed method for the construction of virtual city space, construction costs can be reduced and retrieval can be accelerated. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Syst Comp Jpn, 29(14): 1–10, 1998