Conclusion

The Internet and GIS

     The integration of GIS with the Internet is an inevitable, rapidly growing trend into the future. It is important for the GIS community to monitor and define the course of this development. In addition, the Internet’s ability to reach a wider audience will have important impacts on GIS users, developers, and institutions. For users, Internet GIS also provides an efficient pool to conduct GIS analysis (i.e. buffering) over the web. For developers, Internet GIS provides a new challenge and opportunity to broaden their market share (i.e. ESRI’s ArcIMS software over its competitors). For institutions (i.e. SFU), Internet GIS will facilitate integration and coordination of different departments and functions within an organization as well as among organizations (BMCC) because spatial data in different departments are now easily accessible and sharable.

     Interactive mapping is only the first step in the development of Internet GIS. Future developments will inevitably focus on interactive GIS analysis. Internet GIS also provides an opportunity to extend GIS technology and geospatial-information to a much broader user group - the general public (Peng, 1998).

Did We Meet Our Goals?

     To recap, the goal of this project was to create an Internet-based GIS website featuring the Burnaby Mountain Community Project. This website was to have enabled the user to perform basic GIS operations such as measuring distances, viewing attribute data and buffering features. The application was also to provide a viewshed capability. After nearly three months of work, the question begs to be asked – was this goal met?

     The answer lies in our application website, UniverCity. Available at http://mapserver.geog.sfu.ca/Website/BMCC, we believe that this site fulfills the stated goals for this project. The site provides the user with a online map of the current SFU campus as well as the proposed development. The site offers buffering, distance measuring and attribute querying, satisfying the GIS requirement. Lastly, it offers two types of viewshed analysis: a traditional, map-based depiction of all areas that can be seen from a given point, as well as an innovative, QuickTime Virtual Reality based interactive viewshed, in which the user can immerse him/herself in a photorealistic view.

     While we were not able to incorporate our every desire into the project (one wish, for example, was to be able to click on any point, not just a set of arbitrarily selected points, and obtain a viewshed– this proved to be nearly impossible given the constraints of time, computational power and experience), we firmly believe that we have met our goals and have provided the Burnaby Mountain community with a valuable resource.

What Did We Learn?

     This project was, as is any well-devised assignment, a valuable learning experience for all group members. We started as complete neophytes in the realm of online GIS, but were expected to create a publicly accessible application in less than thirteen weeks. Our first few group meetings were spent huddled around SIS-27, with nothing more than the assignment outline and five blank stares. We soon completed ESRI’s Virtual Campus online ArcIMS course and started tinkering away, creating test websites. We became experts in data manipulation, projection and repair and proficient at bringing GIS to the web. We all became project managers, in a sense; we had to take into account varying concerns, such as the extent of the GIS capabilities available to the user and the system requirements of the website.

     More importantly, we learned a great deal about what it takes to bring a project such as this to fruition. Internet-based GIS is a constantly evolving arena. As much information came from other users in ESRI’s online forums than it did from journal articles and ESRI’s ArcIMS documentation. Creating this application has given each of us a toehold into this fascinating realm.

Looking Towards The Future

     A website is never “complete.” There are always updates, changes and upgrades. It will be exciting to watch the site evolve over time; as new areas are built up, for example, viewsheds could be regenerated to show the new areas. As the technology and our collective experience grow, perhaps the vision of obtaining a viewshed from any point will be realized. We hope that both the university and the BMCC recognize that the Internet and online GIS are constantly progressing and that they continue to maintain the application. We have provided a tool for the community, one that we expect will prove useful to everyone involved in the development of Burnaby Mountain.