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UTILIZING 3D WEB-BASED GIS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION AND 
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS 
Rifaat Abdalla 
GeoICT Lab, Center for Research in Earth and Space Science, York University 
4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3J 1P3 
abdalla@yorku.ca 
  
WG VII/5 
KEYWORDS: GIS, Hazards, Internet/Web, Modeling, Visualization, Interoperability, Disaster 
ABSTRACT: 
Geographic Information Systems visual products have become a powerful resource for Infrastructure Protection and Emergency 
Preparedness. The utility of informed decision making processes could significantly be improved using 3D web-based GIS visual models. 
However, collective efforts are needed for further improvement of currently available visual models to address Infrastructure Protection 
and Emergency Preparedness requirements. This paper delineates an approach taken to emphasize and provide capabilities for web- 
based three-dimensional visualization of GIS data for Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response. In this paper, issues related to 
visualization models, concepts, and requirements have been examined with emphasis on a mock emergency scenario for Santa Barbara 
International Airport in California. Integration of Internet capabilities with 3D GIS rendering have enabled new modes of analysis and 
exploration, particularly for Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response. Despite all the ease that 3D web-based GIS brings to 
Emergency Preparedness community, still there is a crucial question remains unanswered: how 3D Web-based GIS can bring with it 
great opportunities, while it presents very significant problems in effectively communicating information, particularly to non-GIS 
professionals i.e. Disaster and Emergency Response Managers? GeoServNet, a web-based GIS system developed by York University 
GeoICT lab, aimed at solving this problem through providing variety of mechanisms for visualization that may help in eliminating in- 
experienced user interaction obstacles. 
objective is 2) to provide innovative solutions that integrate 
1. INTRODUCTION heterogeneous data sources. Beyond all that 3) visual 3D 
models provide additional dimension that can help in 
"oe ; ; determining more realistic approximation of feature space. 
Interdisciplinary methods have been used for long time by = PP P 
scientists and decision makers for visualizing spatial data. The 
objective of building GIS visual models is to assist in data 
exploration and real-world conceptualization. Building visual 
data models involves a set of data processing and display 
techniques that aid in providing reasonable interpretation and 
analysis of the complex relationships in large spatial data sets 
rapidly. This represents a crucial issue for the application of 
emergency preparedness and response. 
At present, variety of software have the capability of handling a 
wide range of spatial problems, beginning with approaches for 
describing spatial objects to quite complex analysis that 
provided up-to four dimensional visualization. Nevertheless, 
increasing number of applications should have more advanced 
tools for representing and analyzing the 3D real world. Among 
all types of systems dealing with spatial information, web- 
based systems has proven the accessibility and dimensionality 
that are required by systems that operates with the largest scope 
of objects either spatial or semantic relationships, and provide 
means of modeling them. An alternative development approach 
to GlSystems would be a service oriented approach that is 
distributed across a network, via standard internet browser 
(Tao, and Yuan 2000). Based on GIS service concept, 
significant advances have been made in the development of 
visual 3D models of natural topography, in the recent years. 
3D-GIS distinguish itself from a ‘normal’ GIS by two, the 
dimension of the spatial data in the system; and the visual 
dimension of the spatial data. In a 2D GIS, storage of data is 
still often based on 2D layers, possibly with an extension to 2D 
surfaces. The nature of spatial relations between objects will be 
GIS Data visualization refers to the presentation of data by 
digital images, vector data, digital elevation models, tabular 
information, and virtual reality, in either two or three- 
dimensional presentations, static or animated. The motivation 
for exploring 3D web-based GIS applications for Infrastructure 
Protection and Emergency Preparedness and Response goes far 
beyond providing approximated real-world model. From GIS 
perspective, the main objective of visualization is 1) to produce 
visual models that can effectively aid decision makers to 
identify spatial patterns and processes that relate to solving 
problems at hand. Having said that, GIS visualization utmost 
aim is not only to produce pretty looking models that exploit 
human visual systems and identify spatial features, another 
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