Transforming GML to Presentation Languages by Extending XSLT

Abstract

Diversity of practices and methods in all fields is the basis of emerging standards in different areas. World WideWeb Consortium (W3C) has standardized eXtensible Markup Language (XML) as a very convenient tool to structure data for numerous purposes. OGC standardized Geography Markup Language (GML), which is an XML-based language, to store and transport geospatial data. Despite the fact that it is a medium to separate georeferenced data from presentation, GML by itself is not intended to visualize geo-referenced data. One of the solutions to visualize GML is to use eXtensible Style sheet Language Transformation (XSLT) as transformer to a visualization language such as Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG). Unlike the usual procedure, the major advantage of the proposed approach is that the transformation process is shifted to the client-side. XSLT as a median language is a general-purpose transformation tool. As it is not specialized for map cartography, map making process is very complicated using this primitive language. To facilitate transformation process, in this research, XSLT is extended to meet cartography requirements. Furthermore, a graphical user interface (XCartoT) is designed to set all the map properties interactively. XCartoT provides a user-friendly interface for cartographers to automatically generate necessary XSL files for their intended maps. The goal of this research is to develop a major step towards the geospatial Web.