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New GIS tool for city planners

The Swedish Royal Institute of Technology developed the webGIS application to help city planners view and analyse geographic data.

Digital Economy icon Digital Economy

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have revolutionised a number of different occupations in recent years. The Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme funded research to build upon existing GIS technology to provide new tools to city planners. City planners face the challenging task of trying to fuse social, legal, economic, environmental and other criteria with map data. The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, a partner in the project entitled INVISIP, oversaw the development of a webGIS application. The application allows the user to manipulate, query and view both primary data and metadata, i.e. statistical or otherwise processed data evolving from the primary data. The browsing capabilities assist the user in the analysis of the metadata and support the decision-making process. A full-scale prototype was developed, which was then tailored to three different countries (Italy, Germany and Poland) where trials took place during INVISIP. While the prototype was devised with city planners in mind, it could be extended to other user groups. Other potential users include: geologists, engineers, surveyors, transportation specialists, biologists and other environmentally inspired scientists. The Royal Institute of Technology is searching for city planners with strong backgrounds in software development to further the development of the webGIS.

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