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Application of XML for Interactive Online Mapping

AxioMap implements a new technology for publishing interactive maps on the Web. Layers with vector map information are converted from a common GIS into a series of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) files. These files, along with a lightweight map viewer, are copied to a Web server. This is all it takes: the map is now ready to be viewed by anyone on the Web.

This technology complements the traditional way of publishing interactive maps based on an Internet Map Server. Such servers are available, for example, from ESRI or MapInfo , are quite expensive and typically require significant setup, management and programming efforts. With this approach, maps are generated by the server and sent to the Web browser as image files. Therefore, performance degrades with large number of simultaneous users, map interaction requires "round-trips" to the Web server, and visual quality is also limited. An alternate technique requires installing a plug-in that communicates with the map server to display vector maps in otherwise graphically-challenged browser.

In Axiomap, the Web browser takes care of all map operations and map generation. No internet map servers are required. Virtual multi-layer vector maps are instantly generated by retrieving XML files from different servers. We use an XML-based graphic markup language to render vector coordinates of geographic objects directly in the browser. To display maps in a web browser AxioMap uses either VML (Vector Markup Language) or SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). VML is natively supported by Internet Explorer 5+ for Windows, while the SVG version requires a browser plug-in from Adobe, for both Netscape and Microsoft browsers. An upcoming version will generate vector maps in Silverlight, a new vector markup technology from Microsoft.

In addition to rendering vector layers, Axiomap can be configured to display and manipulate one or more map images retrieved from common Internet map servers (WMS or ArcIMS). See examples on the Applications and Demos page.