Using IRIS Explorer with a Geographic Information System

by David O'Brien, NAG Limited

Geographic Information Systems (External) (GIS) are an established technology in commerce and science. They augment traditional databases with geographical data so that maps can be dynamically generated and spatial models executed. Applications include marketing, emergency services planning, environmental monitoring and minerals exploration. Most GIS, however, are based on old technologies which are rigidly two-dimensional and have notoriously poor user interfaces and development tools. Users are starting to ask for more.

IRIS Explorer, the popular data visualisation toolkit and application builder from NAG, can meet these expectations. It can store and manipulate spatial data, both raster and vector, with greater flexibility than conventional GIS. For instance, images in IRIS Explorer may have as many dimensions and components as required by the user. The IRIS Explorer Map Editor offers faster geographic model development through a closer, visual binding of data, process and visualisation. Finally, the use of geometry based on the Open Inventor (External) standard used within IRIS Explorer offers more complex visualisation techniques than conventional GIS, with the possibility of any juxtaposition of two, three or four-dimensional methods.

For these reasons, NAG is actively seeking to extend the range of modules that make IRIS Explorer accessible to a wider section of the GIS user community. This work has started with the development of reader modules that transform popular GIS data formats into IRIS Explorer data structures. So far, we have support for

data products. These open formats are available to most GIS users, either directly or via relatively simple conversion procedures.

The new modules transform aspatial database components into the new IRIS Explorer data structures which have been developed by the STABLE (External) team at NAG. STABLE is a project to build an advanced statistical system based on IRIS Explorer's visual programming paradigm; more details are given in the article in this issue of Render. This connection to STABLE will make a large suite of advanced statistical routines available to geographic analysts.

Of course, presentation and access are key elements of usable geographic information, so we see it as a key and unique feature of IRIS Explorer that web-ready visualisations may be written to VRML, the visual language of the Internet. (For the latest news on IRIS Explorer and VRML 2.0, be sure to read the article in this issue). In our GIS work, we have written a new module called WriteHTML which generates HTML pages for database records which may be aligned with links in the VRML file. Using this output, a user on the Internet or an intranet can just click on, for example, a census district to view its records for population, home ownership and so on.

Keep an eye on the IRIS Explorer website for background, demonstrations and downloadable components of the new GIS support for IRIS Explorer. In the meantime please contact the Helpdesk for more information.

Last modified: Mar 16 14:47 1999
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© NAG Ltd, Oxford UK. 1999