GIS-Publisher: From a Geographic Data Set to a Deployed Product with One Command

Abstract

In our research laboratory, we have been working on developing a software product line (SPL) specifically tailored for generating web-based geographic information systems (GIS). In addition, we have also designed a domain specific language (DSL) to make configuring our products as easy and flexible as possible. Over time, we have utilized this product line to create small GIS products, aiming to simplify the process of publishing and sharing geographic data. The steps involved in generating and deploying this kind of products are consistently repeated, so they can be easily automated. Doing so, we further reduce the time to market for this set of simple products, and minimize the complexity associated with the entire process. This article introduces GIS-Publisher, a tool that allows users to easily generate web applications from a directory containing a collection of shapefiles (a popular format for storing geographic data). These web applications can be also automatically deployed on their preferred machine, whether it is locally, remotely (via SSH), or even on an AWS instance. Moreover, the tool also supports the definition of custom styles for each shapefile, granting users full control over the visual representation of their geographic data.