| Abstract |
Education and Leisure constitute two major, but as yet relatively underdeveloped areas of application for GIS. The range of possible products one can imagine for these markets is almost limitless. Immediately obvious examples are guides for fishing, ornithology, etc.; historical and archaeological maps in layers upon specific areas; and maps of great battles and cartographically based games. In functional terms, most of these potential products would: provide the user with multimedia information, relating text, graphics and pictures to the GIS data; allow him to build up his own records; provide him with a set of tools to carry out analysis upon the data appropriate to the subject and context.
To be successful, however, such products would have to retail at relatively low prices (e.g. up to 100 ECU per copy). To achieve this, low production costs and a relatively mass market are needed. Ideally, one should be able to deliver the product on a standard platform with no additional peripherals (e.g. a PC running MS Windows), and undertake development on the basis of a generic design using highly optimised tools.
The objective of GISEL, therefore, is to develop a strategy for addressing the world market for such products, assemble an appropriate tool kit, create a paradigm of which specific designs will be instances, and produce the first two or three examples of the product line.
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, UNITED KINGDOM
OCTACON Limited, UNITED KINGDOM
Societe Electronique Informatique Systemes Automatisme, FRANCE
Ernst Klett Verlag fuer Wissen und Bildung GmbH, GERMANY
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