Developing Web-based Geographic Information Systems with a DSL: Proposal and Case Study

Authors

  • Suilen H. Alvarado Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain
  • Alejandro Cortiñas Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain
  • Miguel R. Luaces Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain
  • Oscar Pedreira Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain
  • Ángeles S. Places Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13052/jwe1540-9589.1923

Keywords:

Domain specific language, geographic information systems

Abstract

In this paper, we present a declarative domain-specific language (DSL) for the development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS applications manage information with a spatial component, usually in the form of points, lines, polygons, or variants of these basic data types, in domains where the spatial information plays a central role. They provide the user with different functionalities on different application domains, but they are usually developed according to a common architecture and using a common set of technologies. Hence, they share a significant number of elements that make some aspects of their development quite repetitive. Our DSL allows developers to specify the entities, geographic layers, and maps of the applications using a declarative language. Then, the specification is transformed into a working GIS application. We present the language, its implementation, and a case study on two sample projects that allowed us to evaluate the resulting software, paying special attention to the savings in the development effort.

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Author Biographies

Suilen H. Alvarado, Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

Suilen H. Alvarado, is a Ph.D. student in Computer at the University of A Coruña, Spain since 2018. She received an M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of Concepción, Chile in 2018, and a Computer Engineering degree from the University of Matanzas, Cuba in 2012. Her research topics of interest include the application of automated software development techniques in Geographic Information Systems.

Alejandro Cortiñas, Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

Alejandro Corti˜nas is an Assistant Professor at the Database Lab of the Universidade da Coru˜na (Spain). He received a PhD in Computer Science from the same university in 2017 for his thesis, entitled “Software Product Line for web-based Geographic Information Systems”. His research topics of interest include software product lines, generative programming, geographic information systems, and spatial big data.

Miguel R. Luaces, Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

Miguel R. Luaces received his M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of A Coru˜na (Spain) in 1998 and an European Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of A Coru˜na (Spain) in 2004. He undertook research in the area of spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal databases at the FernUniversit¨at Hagen (Germany) under the ChoroChronos project funded by the European Union. Today, he is an Associate Professor at the University of A Coru˜na, and he is currently a member of the Databases Laboratory of the University of A Coru˜na where he has been involved successfully in a number of research and development projects. His research interests include Geographic Information Systems, Spatial and Spatio-temporal Databases, Software Engineering, and Web-based Information Systems.

Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

Oscar Pedreira has M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from University of A Coru˜na, Spain. He is an Associate Professor since 2008 at the same institution. He is a researcher of the Database Laboratory. His research interests include topics in databases (algorithms for similarity search, data structures and algorithms for graph databases, geographic information systems), and in software engineering (process improvement, testing, MDE, and SPL). He has co-authored many articles published in journals and conferences relevant for the research areas mentioned. He has continuously participated in research projects and technology and knowledge transfer projects with different companies.

Ángeles S. Places, Universidade da Coruña, Centro de Investigación CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informática, Elviña s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

Ángeles Saavedra Places is currently an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department of the University of A Coruña. She received her PhD in Computer Science in 2003 from the same university. Her research interests are in the areas of Digital Humanities, Web Information Systems, Geographic Information Systems and Software Engineering. For further details about her CV see: http://lbd.udc.es/ShowResearcherInformation.do?id=5

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Published

2020-06-03

How to Cite

Alvarado, S. H., Cortiñas, A., Luaces, M. R., Pedreira, O., & Places, Ángeles S. (2020). Developing Web-based Geographic Information Systems with a DSL: Proposal and Case Study. Journal of Web Engineering, 19(2), 167–194. https://doi.org/10.13052/jwe1540-9589.1923

Issue

2020: Vol 19 Iss 2

Section

SPECIAL ISSUE: Advanced Practices in Web Engineering 2020