Abstract:
The Commission on Geoinformation Infrastructures and Standards of the
International Cartographic Association (ICA) is working on defining models of
spatial data infrastructures (SDI). SDI models from the enterprise and
information viewpoints of the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing
(RM-ODP) have already been presented. Our model from the computational
viewpoint identifies the main computational objects of an SDI and their
interfaces, which are modelled using Unified Modelling Language (UML)
component diagrams. Presented here is the first comprehensive SDI model from
the computational viewpoint, which enhances the understanding of the
computational objects and their interactions in an SDI. This viewpoint
complements the previous two and together, the three viewpoints contribute
towards a more holistic interpretation of an SDI, which is independent of specific
SDI legislation, technology and implementations. For the computational
viewpoint, we identified six computational objects, SDI Registry, SDI Data, SDI
Processing, SDI Application, SDI Portrayal and SDI Management, and their
provided and required interfaces. We describe the interactions of the
computational objects in stakeholder activities and the roles they play in the
different processes of SDI development and use, which we identified as
Initiation, Creation, Management, Manipulation, Access, Processing, Evaluation
and Liaison. Two tables summarise the SDI services that are provided
