On Developing Spatial Data Infrastructure of China

From Information Highway, Spatial Information Infrastructure (SDI) to Digital Earth, the requirement from the user raised new chances and challenges to GIS software. As a part of Digital Earth, the core of Digital China is SDI of the country and that of all levels of administrative regions. This paper discusses the requirement of GIS software system for the construction of SDIs of China in detail. As an initial solution for creating various levels of SDIs in China, GeoStar, a GIS software system capable of providing a powerful platform for integrating multi-source massive spatial data in distributed computing environment is introduced. Based on our successful experiences of GeoStar applied in a series of pilot projects of SDIs in China, it is concluded that GeoStar is a feasible solution of software environment for creating the country level and regional levels of SDIs in China.