Open Source Software Approach for Internet GIS and Its Application

Geographic information systems (GIS) are increasingly being used for effective accessibility to spatial data. Due to technical complexity and high cost, communities lacking the expertise and resources cannot benefit from this technology. Open source software (OSS) offers the potential to solve these problems. At first this paper briefly reviews the OSS and open source GIS(OSGIS). Then an approach for developing Internet GIS using open source software is proposed. Issues involved in the development, including economic and technical, are discussed later. To demonstrate the approach a case study of Web-based mountain data sharing information system is presented. The presented case shows that development of Internet GIS based on OSS is feasible. It also provides a solution for internet GIS that is low cost and simple to implement.