An OGC compliant interoperable network to distribute geological maps and data over the Internet

During the 2003, the Centre of Geo-Technologies (CGT) of University of Siena (Italy) and the Regione Emilia-Romagna Geological Office (RERGO) have developed a system to search, visualize, distribute and share geological information and maps through the Internet. The aim of the project was to distribute and share the geological knowledge and data collected during the life of the above mentioned office and already available in digital format. The data to be distributed consisted of a series of geological raster map images and vector map data at various scales. Particularly the raster images represent maps belonging to the series named ‘Geological Map of the Emilia-Romagna Apennines area at the scale of 1:10000’ produced before the extensive adoption of GISs and the vector data refer to the series of CARG products so far realised by RERGO. All the data have been described by metadata in standard formats following the ISO directives. The whole collection of metadata has been stored in a centralised repository. The data have been published on the Web using an OGC WMS compliant IMS, particularly the OGC connector within the ESRI ArcIMS, and they can be accessed either by the means of a standard OGC compliant client application or through the provided Web interfaces. The system is made up of a Metadata Explorer Web Application, of an OGC Web Map Server (WMS) and Web Feature Server (WFS) interfaces and of a series of Web Mapping tools . The system is supported by an administration module that allows the administrator to manage the user privileges, the content layers to be used for each map, the interface look and feel and functionalities to be used. Copyright 2004, International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. All rights reserved.