AN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN APPROACH FOR A GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION-RETRIEVAL SYSTEM TO SUPPORT RETRIEVAL BY CONTENT AND BROWSING

In present Geographical Information Systems (GIS), access to informati on is restricted to experienced users. On the contrary, it is importan t to permit to final users, easy access to information by content and in a natural way. In fact, a final user is not always an expert on GIS , but he is an expert in a specific application area, such as urban ma nagement or land administration. Geographical systems must be able to manage geographical and structured data, together with textual data, a nd data in other media. In fact, an active use of textual data can add an effective access point for the collection of geographical informat ion. So, it is necessary to include textual-management operations in c urrently existing geographical systems, in order to provide a useful a nd comprehensive access point for geographical information collection to nonexpert users of the application. This paper introduces an archit ecture and design approach for a Geographical Information Retrieval Sy stem (GIRS) capable of supporting retrieval by content and browsing on textual data; the architecture and design approach provides the frame work for the management of various kinds of media that are necessary t o manage in geographical systems.