Xerox PARC Map Viewer
Encyclopedia
Xerox PARC Map Viewer was one of the earliest static web mapping
sites, developed by Steve Putz in June 1993 at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The Xerox PARC Map Viewer was an experiment in providing interactive information retrieval
, rather than access to just static files, on the World Wide Web
(Putz 1994).
Map Viewer used a customized CGI
server
module written in Perl
. Map images were generated in GIF
format from two server side programs. MAP-WRITER created the raster images from the geographic database and RASTOGIF would convert the raster image into the GIF format.
Xerox has since discontinued the Map Viewer service.
Web mapping
Web mapping is the process of designing, implementing, generating and delivering maps on the World Wide Web and its product. While web mapping primarily deals with technological issues, web cartography additionally studies theoretic aspects: the use of web maps, the evaluation and optimization of...
sites, developed by Steve Putz in June 1993 at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The Xerox PARC Map Viewer was an experiment in providing interactive information retrieval
Information retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
, rather than access to just static files, on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
(Putz 1994).
Map Viewer used a customized CGI
Common Gateway Interface
The Common Gateway Interface is a standard method for web servers software to delegate the generation of web pages to executable files...
server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
module written in Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
. Map images were generated in GIF
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
format from two server side programs. MAP-WRITER created the raster images from the geographic database and RASTOGIF would convert the raster image into the GIF format.
Xerox has since discontinued the Map Viewer service.
External links
- About the Xerox PARC Map Viewer
- Interactive Information Services Using World-Wide Web Hypertext, paper by Steve Puts (1994)
- An Interactive Map Viewer, section from that paper describing the map server