DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF 
AN OBJECT-ORIENTED GIS SOFTWARE 
Jianya Gong 
Deren Li 
National Key Lab for Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing 
Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping 
39 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430070, P.R. of China 
Commission IVIV 
KEY WORDS: 
ABSTRACT: 
GIS, Database, Software, Design, Model, Integration 
This paper discusses object-oriented technology in GIS from geographic real world, through the conceptual model 
of geographic phenomenon, logical model of geographic database, and software modeling of geographic information 
system. The object-oriented semantic models are used for describing the spatial phenomena and objects. An object- 
oriented spatial database management system (GeoDB) is designed according to the object-oriented logical data model, 
and an object-oriented GIS software (GeoStar) is developed based on the GeoDB and C++. Some techniques on object- 
oriented analysis, object-oriented system design, and system implementation are introduced in this article. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Object-oriented technology has come into fashion in computer 
science and technology. Object-Oriented 
Programming Language (OOPL), Object-Oriented System 
Analysis (OOA), Object-Oriented System Design (OOD), 
Object-Oriented Interface (OOI), Object-Oriented Database 
Management System  (OODBMS), Object-Oriented 
Geographic Information System (OOGIS), Object-Oriented 
Knowledge Engineering (OOKE) and so on. We have seen 
that object-oriented approaches have made great progresses. 
It includes 
Proprietary object-oriented systems have continued to develop 
in the intervening years. The programming language C++ is 
very popular and now well-established as a standard object- 
oriented language. Commercial object-oriented database 
management systems (OODBMS) including ONTOS, 
Gemstone, ObjectStore, O2 and etc. have become easily 
available, although they are still not in use on large-scale. In 
GIS, research on the application of object-oriented ideas to 
GIS has come a long way in the past few years, from 
pioneering work by Egenhofer and Frank (1987), through the 
explorations done by Worboys(1990), Gong(1990), etc., to 
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current work on conceptual models, logical data models, 
system modeling and implementation. The object-oriented 
approach has been used to design and implement systems such 
as letergraph's TIGRIS, Smallworld GIS, Laser Scan's GAE 
and GeoStar (Gong, 1994) developed by Wuhan Technical 
University of Surveying and Mapping in China. As yet there 
are few proprietary GIS that have object-oriented features, but 
those that do exist have been highly successful for specialized 
markets and it is likely that more commercial object-oriented 
GIS will follow(Worboys, 1994). 
A GIS is a multi-faceted entity that goes through several 
processes in its life-cycle (see figure 1, Worboys, 1994) from 
conception through design and implementation to use. The 
object-oriented approach can be applied at all of these 
different levels and has a slightly different meaning at each. 
From the beginning, the object-oriented conceptual model can 
be used for object analysis and system analysis. Following 
analysis comes design, which is responsible for deriving a 
logical data structure and a system. The procedure from object- 
oriented conceptual model to object-oriented logical data 
structure is natural and the result of object-oriented analysis is 
useful to object-oriented design. The translation of the design 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996