On The Road To 3D Geographic Systems: Important Aspects of Global Model-Mapping Technology

What are the main concepts behind the new geographic systems like Google Earth or NASA World Wind? How do they relate to the current GIS mechanisms? What new do they bring to the society? Or, what are the differences compared to cartographic maps? These questions are recently asked at IT departments of companies dealing with geographic information as well as in various agencies that collect, maintain and provide geographic data. This text approaches the hype around these technologies from a more academic perspective. The main question addressed here has rather the following form; what new problems do these systems address in terms of research and science? The argumentation concentrates on geographic spatial referencing, uniform organization of geographic data on a network, and relates them to the Internet services and to methods of navigation in three-dimensional virtual environment. These seemingly separate topics are identified as cornerstones of complex systems that attempt to augment information services with a three-dimensional model of the environment we inhabit. One possible solution and implementation of the core concepts is introduced. This software platform is provided to the community as an open source project called GRIFINOR.