Dr. John P. Wilson
Department of Geography
College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0255
(213) 740-1908 (voice)
(213) 740-9687 (fax)
jpwilson@usc.edu (e-mail)
The results of four recent research projects integrating online sources with
geospatial data – one linking mediators, wrappers, and geospatial data; another
integrating vector data and imagery; a third integrating online schedules
(moving objects) with vectors; and a fourth project integrating documents with
maps – are reviewed to illustrate the types of applications we plan to support
in a general framework for integrating geospatial and online data. There is a
terrific opportunity to exploit the integration of these two types of
information sources given the huge quantity of geospatial data now available and
large amount of data available on the Web. The challenge is that the dynamic
integration of online data and geospatial data is beyond the state of the art of
existing integration systems. We are currently working on a project that aims to
develop a general framework for integrating online and geospatial data sources.
This type of framework will support the rapid, dynamic integration of a wide
variety of sources and greatly improve the nation’s ability to respond to
unexpected events.
This work is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Information Technology Research Program in a project entitled "ITR: Framework for Integrating Geospatial and Online Data to Respond to Unexpected Events" (NSF Award #0324955). The Co-Principal Investigators for this project are Dr. Craig A. Knoblock, Information Sciences Institute, College of Engineering, University of Southern California, Dr. Cyrus Shahabi, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering, University of Southern California, and Dr. John P. Wilson, Department of Geography, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, University of Southern California. Other senior collaborators include Drs. José Luis Ambite and Robert M. MacGregor from the Information Sciences Institute in the College of Engineering at the University of Southern California.