Stilsättning av geografiska data

Sammanfattning: Geographic data are data that is linked to a geographic location and is used in many different areas of society, such as all types of community and community planning, climate and environment, culture and nature, crisis management, transport and logistics. In order for geographic data to be used across county and municipal boundaries as well as in different organisations, a uniform system and standards are required. There are therefore major society benefits of having well-functioning systems and standards for geographic data. There are standards for the formats in which geographic data is to be delivered, how to deliver style, but also the reference system to be used in Sweden. There are several different initiatives for the implementation and use of geographic data standards and systems. An area where formal standards have not been given a sufficient impact is the visualisation of geographic data. The importance of visualisation of geographic data can not be emphasised enough and it is the process that turns raw data into an analytical and explanatory tool. At present, many Swedish authorities deliver geographic data primarily in a proprietary standard that cannot be used by all programs. A format that is only useful in supplier-specific software can not be considered to meet the requirement that geographic data is useful and easily accessible. OS MasterMap Topography Layer is being used in Britain and the symbolisation of the geographical data is delivered in three different formats: QML (which is used in QGIS), LYR (which is used in ArcMap) and SLD (which is a formal standard from OGC). This is a good example of how style can be delivered in multiple formats from an authority. In this study formats for visualisation of geographic data is evaluated. The aim is to identify which solutions are available to increase the compatibility of different software regarding visualisation of geographic data. Interviews are being conducted with Lantmäteriet and the association for standardisation, SIS, with the purpose of investigating how styles are handled today and how the future evolves. The solutions for styles are mapped and tested in a case study. Restrictions have been made that the case study only includes conversion from formats that authorities primarily deliver data in, namely Shape and LYR-files. The data used in the case study only covers topographic data. The solutions are evaluated after a requirement specification and proposals for how styles should be managed are presented. The case study resulted in GeoCat Bridge being the only solution that converted LYR-file to SE-file well enough. Together with manually creating the style in the desired format, these are the best solutions for increasing the compatibility of styling in different software. Creating styles manually is a time-consuming job that makes most effort if it is done as centrally as possible in an organization. The result shows that there is currently no format for styling that is perfect in all respects. A proposal has been developed for the best solution for convertering style from LYR to other formats. Proposedly, authorities should create styles in more than one format to ensure that more than one software can be used as it allows more users to use the data. OS MasterMap Topography Layer is a good example of how geographic data can be offered in different formats.