Towards a toolbox for geographic user interfaces

Abstract

User interfaces form an essential component of applications that manipulate graphic data (geography, cartography, CAD/CAM, ...). Although some work has been done recently in this area, each system usually has its own ad hoc user interface built from scratch, and there is no user interface model general enough for customizing the presentation of such applications.

This paper presents a conceptual model for describing user interfaces of systems manipulating maps in an object oriented environment. The Map Display model proposed here is composed of two levels: (i) the Interaction Level and (ii) the External Spatial Level. The Interaction level handles interface objects such as windows. In particular, the need of introducing a new kind of window devoted to map editing is considered in this level. The External Spatial Level deals with (low level) objects manipulated by the end user. They come from a mapping of database objects onto interface objects.

This work has been partially carried out while the author was visiting the Center for Environmental Design Research at UC Berkeley.

Work partially supported by the French Programme de Recherche Coordonnée BD3 and the ESPRIT BRA Working Group “Basic GOODS”.