A WEB-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR URBAN DATA SHARING AND D

635ACE©Vol.2,núm.4,junio2007|AWEB-BASEDFRAMENWORKFORURBANDATASHARINGANDDYNAMICINTEGRATION.HongxiaWang,AndyHamilton,JohnCounsell,JosephTahAWEB-BASEDFRAMEWORKFORURBANDATASHARINGANDDYNAMICINTEGRATIONHongxiaWang,AndyHamilton,JohnCounsell,JosephTahTheResearchInstituteforBuiltandHumanEnvironment(BuHu)@salford.ac.ukRemisiónArtículo:30-4-2007Keywords:Webfeatureservice(WFS),Dataintegration,Mediator,Buildingfeatureservice(BFS)Abstract:Inurbanplanningandmanagement,datasharingandintegrationarealwaysproblematicbecauseurbandatasetsareheterogeneousandscatteredindifferentdomainsandorganisations.ThispaperintroducestheresearchworkbeingcarriedwithintheVirtualEnvironmentPlanning(VEPS)project.Basedonaloosely-coupledmediatorsystemandOpenGeospatialConsortium’sWebServices(OWS)architecture,aWeb-basedinformationserviceframeworkisdesignedtosupportthesharingandintegrationofgeo-spatialinformation,buildinginformationandotherrelatedinformation.Inthisframework,aBuildingFeatureService(BFS)isdefinedtoimplementtheretrievalofbuildinginformationmodelontheWebaccordingtotheOWSprinciples.TheBFScanactasaWeb-basedbuildinginformationserverforurbanplanningandconstructionstakeholders.Asproofofconcept,aninitialprototypeisdevelopedtodemonstratethedatasharingandintegrationbasedonthisweb-basedinformationserviceframework.IntroductionInurbanplanning,thereisanincreasingneedtoseamlesslyutiliseandintegratevariousurbandatasets,describedas‘urbandatafusion’.TheINSPIREdraftdirectivedefinesaneedfor“acoherentcombinationofspatialdatasetsorservicesthatrepresentsaddedvalue,withoutrequiringspecificeffortsonthepartofahumanoperatororamachine”(INSPIRE2004).SignificantintegrationofrelevanturbandatasetslikespatialdatafromtheCADandGISdomainswillhelpbothprofessionalsandthepublicintheirunderstandingofexistingurbanenvironments(Nedovic-Budica2004;Oosterom2005;Döllner2006).Professionalslikeurbanplanners,designers,managersanddevelopersneedtheintegratedinformationinmanyworkingtaskslikeurbanplanning,urbandesign,preservationofhistoricalbuildings,disastermanagementetc.Citizenscanalsobenefitfromthevisualizationandsimulationbaseduponintegratedinformation.However,datasharingandintegrationhavealwaysbeenproblematicinurbanplanningduetodataheterogeneityanditscross-domainandcross-organisationnature.First,thedatasetsrelevanttoplanningareheterogeneous.Dataheterogeneityexistsonsyntactic,schematicandsemanticlevels(Bishr1998a;Visser2001).Eachdatasourcemaymodeltheworldinitsownwayandbeincompatiblewiththeothers.Secondly,thesedatasetsarefromdifferentdomainsandstoredinavarietyofsystemsandformats.Forexample,thespatialdatafromtheCADandGISdomainsarerepresentedbydifferentmodellingmethodsandcoordinatesystems.Furthermore,thesedatasetsrelevanttoplanningaremanagedbydifferentorganizationsand636ACE©Vol.2,núm.4,junio2007|AWEB-BASEDFRAMENWORKFORURBANDATASHARINGANDDYNAMICINTEGRATION.HongxiaWang,AndyHamilton,JohnCounsell,JosephTahdistributedinvariouslocations.Theownersofsuchdatamaybeunwillingtosharetheirinformationopenlywithothers.Soitisdifficulttolocate,accessorextractdatafromothersourcesinareliableandacceptableform.Themainaimofthisresearchistoinvestigatethetechnicalmethodswithwhichtosupportdatasharingandintegrationforurbanplanningapplications.SomepilotresearchworkhasbeendoneintheECfundedIntelCitiesproject(FP66.7millioneuros,2004-2005).Aconceptualbuildingdataintegrationsystemwasimplementedthatachievedtheintegrationofdigitisedhistoricbuildingdatawithothertypesofcitydata(Hamilton2005;Wang2005).Basedonthiswork,furtherresearchisproceedingwithintheEU-fundedVEPSproject(INTERREGIIIB,2millioneuros,2005-2008)inwhichtheUniversityofSalfordandtheUniversityoftheWestofEngland(UWE)areinvolved.TheUniversityofSalfordisresponsiblefordevelopingtheVEPSarchitecturewhileUMEareleadingtherequirementsannalysistask.Inthispaper,themainfocusistodevelopacommoninformationservicelayeroftheVEPSarchitecturebasedontherequirementsanalysis.Thispaperpresentsthedesignofaninformationserviceframeworkthatcansupportdatasharingandintegrationforurbanplanning.Inthenextsection,somerequirementanalysisworkwithintheVEPSprojectisintroduced.Insection3,therelatedworkoninformationintegrationandinteroperabilityfromdifferentcommunitiesispresented.InSection4,aweb-basedinformationserviceframeworkisdesignedtoaccordwiththerequirementsofurbanplanning.Insection5,theBuildingFeatureService(BFS)isdefinedbasedontheideaofOGC’sWebFeatureService.Andfinallythedevelopmentofaprototypeisintroducedasaconceptprooffortheinformationserviceframework.1.VEPSandinformationrequirementforcurrentplanningsystem1.1VEPSprojectTheVirtualEnvironmentPlanning(VEPS)projectisfundedbytheINTERREGIIIBNorthWestEuropeProgrammerunningfromNovember2004toApril2008.TheVEPSprojecthaseightacademicandindustrialpartnersacrosstheNWEregion.ItisledbytheEnvironmentAgencyforEnglandandWales(UK),with:TheUniversityofSalford(UK);TheUniversityoftheWestofEngland,Bristol(UK);Scientific&T