Systems supporting collaborative geo-referencing of data and information
activities are increasingly being used for various purposes like urban
planning, risk management, geological prospection, by engineers, city planners,
policemen, firefighters, geologists, architects, etc. These systems commonly
implement processes and functionalities supporting decision making as well as
design and planning. The various visualization metaphors which can be applied
to geo-referenced data and information on an interactive map allow their users
to perform tasks and activities in an intuitive and efficient way. In order to
help people in the designing and programming these kinds of applications we
developed a platform implementing a core of common functionalities
geo-collaborative application share, supporting collaborative work over a
shared workspace displaying a map. The application developer using this
platform has to program only the elements which will be placed over the map in
order to instantiate a particular pplication. These elements can range from
simple graphic labels up to complex agents implementing some behavior,
generating data for a simulation and interacting with the user and ther agents
on the map. The paper describes this architecture and three examples of using
the platform for the development of applications in field of 1) wireless
network planning, 2) real time spatial data analysis from an external source,
and 3) satellite image processing. Since planners must often work in the field
the architecture allows the development of applications for using themin
desktop as well as mobile computers.