DEVELOPING EASY-TO-USE TOOLS FOR VIEWING AND ANALYZING MULTI- 
MEDIA RESOURCE DATA USING HIPERTEXT/HYPERGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES 
Paul G. Pilon, Ph.D. 
Hegyi GeoTechnologies International Inc. 
1031 Vancouver Street 
Victoria, B.C. V8V 4T6 
Canada 
ISPRS Commission VII / Working Group 3 
ABSTRACT 
Improving public awareness of environmental and resource management issues requires that information 
conceming natural resources and the environment be made available to the widest possible audience in a 
manner that is easy to access and understand. 
Environmental and resource data are often multi-media in nature consisting of images, maps and textual 
data. It is often necessary for these types of data to be integrated to be effectively used for environmental 
monitoring and natural resource management. 
Traditionally, such data could only be viewed and analyzed with sophisticated GIS or Image Analysis 
systems. Recent advances in multi-media technologies including hypertext/hypergraphic techniques provide 
an alternative method for viewing and analyzing multi-media resource and environmental data. 
This paper describes the use of the Windows™ Help Compiler for the development of multi-media natural 
resource databases. The ability to define hypertext links, segmented hypergraphic links (hot spots), display 
of full-colour images, keyword searching and the definition of browse sequences provide sophisticated data 
viewing and analysis capabilities. By providing some of the functionality's normally found only in more 
sophisticated GIS/Image Analysis systems these multi-media database can provide powerful yet easy-to-use 
tools which can help involve a wider audience in the environmental monitoring and resource management 
process.