Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 6 Leveraged Web Mapping Technologies
Web Mapping Technologies
Following analysis of the interaction operator functionality provided in the visual-
ization tools, we then inspected the underlying technology used to implement this
functionality.
Web mapping technology
describes the amalgam of frameworks,
libraries, APIs, and web services that enable the creation and dissemination of
web maps (Peterson
2003
). Our evaluation was limited primarily to the client-side
or front-end implementation of the tool, given the focus on visualization and not
processing.
Figure
6
provides an overview of the client-side web mapping technologies
leveraged by the visualization tools included in the sample. Of the twenty-five
visualization tools, eighteen (72 %) rely upon modern web standards (e.g., the
browser-native definitions of HTML, CSS, and JS) while seven (28 %) rely upon a
proprietary plugin to run a binary executable. For nearly a decade, a large number
of web maps leveraged the FlashPlayer plugin by developing in the Adobe Flash or
Flex authoring environments. Use of FlashPlayer resulted in a relatively small file
size, a benefit for vector-based mapping, and improved cross-browser/cross-plat-
form dependency. The use of FlashPlayer has waned in recent years, however, due
