IRIS generates Thematic Maps

by Hans Voss

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The Cooperative Design group of the Artificial Intelligence division of GMD established a cooperation with the Pushchino research center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Two scientists from Pushchino, Drs. Gennady and Natalia Andrienko, are guest researchers at GMD for the second time.

They created IRIS, a prototype system supporting visual analysis of spatially referenced data. IRIS automatically produces high-quality thematic maps for statistical data selected by the user.

The system applies generic knowledge about how to best combine and present statistical data in thematic maps, encoded as heuristic rules, together with application-specific metadata about the statistical data, encoded using an object-oriented knowledge representation language.

Unlike other Geographical Information Systems, IRIS fully automates the production of thematic maps displaying statistical information. It thus allows the user to focus on data analysis rather than on cartographic presentation. The user interface of IRIS is implemented as a Java applet. The system is now available on the World Wide Web, at http://allanon.gmd.de/and/and.html. As an application, you may select attributes originating from the CIA World Factbook, and have values visualized on a map of Europe.

The Cooperative Design group plans to include IRIS-like services in the GeoMed system (Geographical Mediation, see ERCIM News No 25). The IRIS system could also usefully complement data mining systems, such as Kepler.

Please contact:
Hans Voss - GMD
Tel: +49 2241 14 2532
E-mail: hans.voss@gmd.de
Nathalia and Gennady Andrienko - Pushchino State University
E-mail: and@adm.pgu.serpukhov.su