Formalizing a Hypermap Object Model for Multimedia-Geographical Information Systems*

The notion of hypermap emerged as a response to the need for adding to geographical information systems (GIS) the linking and semantics capabilities of hypermedia. A hypermap is a new and powerful instrument for thematic cartography and spatial analysis in GIS. It extends the ability of a GIS to represent, store, manipulate, and display digital maps with the associative linking and interactive capabilities of hypermedia and the semantics power of dynamic multimedia data (i.e., audio, video and animation). A hypermap increases the semantic expressiveness of a GIS, by allowing its users to navigate and manipulate multimedia spatial information, which were not possible, not even conceivable, with conventional GIS.