TopoCad – A unified system for geospatial data and services

Abstract. "E-government" is a leading trend in public sector activities in recent years. The Survey of Israel set as a vision to provide all of its services and datasets online. The TopoCad system is the latest software tool developed in order to unify a number of services and databases into one on-line and user friendly system.

The TopoCad system is based on Web 1.0 technology; hence the customer is only a consumer of data. All data and services are accessible for the surveyors and geo-information professional in an easy and comfortable way.

The future lies in Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies through which professionals can upload their own data for quality control and future assimilation with the national database.

A key issue in the development of this complex system was to implement a simple and easy (comfortable) user experience (UX). The user interface employs natural language dialog box in order to understand the user requirements. The system then links spatial data with alpha-numeric data in a flawless manner. The operation of the TopoCad requires no user guide or training. It is intuitive and self-taught.

The system utilizes semantic engines and machine understanding technologies to link records from diverse databases in a meaningful way. Thus, the next generation of TopoCad will include five main modules: users and projects information, coordinates transformations and calculations services, geospatial data quality control, linking governmental systems and databases, smart forms and applications.

The article describes the first stage of the TopoCad system and gives an overview of its future development.