Modelling, encoding and transforming of open geographic data to examine interoperability between GIS applications

Abstract

The interoperability of geographic data sets is required between geo-information system applications to use geographic data sets effectively. Thus, international standardisation organisation/technical committee 211 standards supporting model-driven architecture were examined to test the ability of producing interoperable geographic data sets. With Turkey case, unified modelling language application schemas were designed for base geographic data themes and encoded to data interchange model based on geography markup language. To test the applicability of the open data models, extract-transform-load (ETL) tools were developed and applied for case applications such as topographic map and web urban atlas. This study gives a methodology and indicates that ETL tools should be created to enable multiple uses of geo-data sets without spending time and labour. However, data model design should be refined and kept as simple as possible because data transformation is laborious to use the models in the applications.