Spatial data on the web: Issues and challenges

Spatial data are today needed in a wide range of application domains. Indeed, spatial properties are included in several application contexts requiring the management of very large data sets, such as, for instance, computer-aided design (CAD), very large scale integration (VLSI), robotics, and image processing. However, the primary target of systems dealing with spatial data remains geographical applications, since they served as the first motivation for the development of such technology and still represent the most challenging application environment [19]. Spatial data can be defined as pieces of information describing quantitative and/or qualitative properties that refer to space. Such properties can be represented as attributes of a set of objects (like the path of a given highway or the technical drawing of the new version of a car engine) or as functions of the space locations (like the temperature measured at a given location on the European continent or the measured infrared emissions in a remote sensing image). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007. All rights are reserved.