Managing and Modeling Strategy of Geo-features in Web-based 3D GIS

Geo-features play a key role in object-oriented or feature-based geo-processing system. So the strategy for how-to-model and how-to-manage the geo-features builds the main architecture of the entire system and also supports the efficiency and functionality of the system. Unlike the conventional 2D geo-processing system, geo-features in 3B GIS have lots to be considered to model regarding the efficient manipulation and analysis and visualization. When the system is running on the Web, it should also be considered that how to leverage the level of detail and the level of automation of modeling in addition to the support for client side data interoperability. We built a set of 3D geo-features, and each geo-feature contains a set of aspatial data and 3D geo-primitives. The 3D geo-primitives contain the fundamental modeling data such as the height of building and the burial depth of gas pipeline. We separated the additional modeling data on the geometry and appearance of the model from the fundamental modeling data to make the table in database more concise and to allow the users more freedom to represent the geo-object. To get the users to build and exchange their own data, we devised a file format called VGFF 2.0 which stands for Virtual GIS File Format. It is to describe the three dimensional geo-information in XML(eXtensible Markup Language). The DTD(Document Type Definition) of VGFF 2.0 is parsed using the DOM(Document Object Model). We also developed the authoring tools for. users can make their own 3D geo-features and model and save the data to VGFF 2.0 format. We are now expecting the VGFF 2.0 evolve to the 3D version of SVG(Scalable Vector Graphics) especially for 3D GIS on the Web.