Recent Advances in Web GIS Architectures and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The past decade has seen dynamic development of Web applications of Geographic Information Systems (Web GIS). In a relatively short time frame, Web GIS have evolved from simple websites focused primarily on data presentation and dissemination into interactive online applications serving a variety of purposes. From the architectural point of view, this evolution has been achieved by two different approaches to the classic three-tiered client-server composition. The first one expands the classic "thin client" logic into a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) context, in which both Data Access and Business Logic tiers are located in the cloud, and the Web GIS client functionalities are constricted to initialising remote procedures and displaying their results. The other Web GIS construction philosophy involves "thick client" and hybrid approaches, which demand higher performance from the client machine in return for better responsiveness and increased interactivity. These advancements in Web GIS architectural designs have been stimulated by the availability of new hardware and software solutions. In particular, WebGL hardware acceleration allowed for the introduction of fully three-dimensional Web GIS client technology by means of the Open Source CesiumJS library, while DHTML tools for spatial data processing and analysis such as Javascript Topology Suite (JSTS) and Cesium Analytics SDK shift the Web GIS frontend paradigm even further towards a fully interactive thick-client contained entirely inside a web browser. This architectural flexibility has paved the way for a wide spectrum of Web GIS applications, ranging from data presentation websites, through Decision Support Systems (DSS) equipped with simulation capabilities, remote data processing and analysis systems, mobile mapping solutions, to Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality applications. This Special Issue intends to collect the latest research in the area of Web GIS architectures and applications. The topics for this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:

- Novel applications of established Web GIS technologies;

- Mobile implementations of Web GIS;

- Web GIS architectures for multidimensional data processing and analysis;

- Web GIS for Big Data processing and analysis;

- Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications of Web GIS;

- Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Web GIS applications;

- Advancements in Web GIS for Geovisual Analytics.

Dr. Marcin Kulawiak
Guest Editor

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