Innovative cartography standards for Web-GIS portals : case study of the 'Survey of Israel's' Web-GIS Portal

Abstract

Maps have been published on the world wide web since its inception (Cartwright, 1999) and
are still accessed and viewed by millions of users today (Peterson, 2003). While early webbased
GIS products lacked a complete set of cartographic capabilities, the functionality within
such systems has significantly increased over recent years. Functionalities once found only in
desktop GIS products are now available in web-based GIS applications, for example, data
entry, basic editing, and analysis. Applications based on web-GIS are becoming more
widespread and the web-based GIS environment is replacing the traditional desktop GIS
platforms in many organizations. Therefore, development of a new cartographic method for
web-based GIS is vital.
The broad aim of this project is to examine and discuss the challenges and opportunities of
innovative cartography methods for web-based GIS platforms. The work introduces a recently
developed cartographic methodology, which is based on a web-based GIS portal by the
Survey of Israel (SOI). The work discusses the prospects and constraints of such methods in
improving web-GIS interfaces and usability for the end user. The work also tables the
preliminary findings of the initial implementation of the web-based GIS cartographic method
within the portal of the Survey of Israel, as well as the applicability of those methods
elsewhere.