GISolve toolkit: advancing GIS through cyberinfrastructure

ABSTRACT

Cyberinfrastructure integrates information and communication technologies to enable high-performance, distributed, and collaborative knowledge discovery, and promises to revolutionize the way that science and engineering are conducted in the 21st century. This paper demonstrates the GISolve Toolkit that enhances Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with respect to geospatial problem-solving based on cyberinfrastructure. GISolve is developed as a high-performance, distributed, and collaborative Web GIS powered by cyberinfrastructure capabilities, including high-performance and Grid computing, data management and visualization, and virtual organization support. GISolve architecture is service-oriented that enables interoperable and scalable integration between spatial analysis and basic cyberinfrastructure services. Currently, GISolve is deployed on the National Science Foundation TeraGrid -- arguably the most advanced cyberinfrastructure project worldwide. A suite of spatial analyses is employed to demonstrate GISolve functions.

REFERENCES

• 1: NSF (National Science Foundation), Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery. Available at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf0728/index.jsp
• 2: S. Wang and X-G. Zhu, Coupling Cyberinfrastructure and Geographic Information Systems to Empower Ecological and Environmental Research. BioScience, 58(2), pp 94--95
• 3: S. Wang, M. P. Armstrong, J. Ni, and Y. Liu. GISolve: a Grid-based Problem Solving Environment for Computationally Intensive Geographic Information Analysis. In: Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing -- Challenges of Large Applications in Distributed Environments (CLADE) Workshop, IEEE Press, pp 3--12, 2005
• 4: S. Wang and M. P. Armstrong, A Theoretical Approach to the Use of Cyberinfrastructure in Geographical Analysis. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, in press, 2009

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.5 On-line Information Services

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation

Keywords:
GIS, cyberinfrastructure, service-oriented computing, spatial analysis, web 2.0