An Intelligent Software Agent Architecture for Distributed Cartographic Knowledge Bases and Internet Mapping Services

The Internet can provide interactive display and multimedia functions for digital maps and remotely sensed imagery. One major problem for the development of Internet mapping facilities is information overload. It is a challenge for the cartographic community to make the power of Internet mapping accessible to users, but at the same time to help users adapt cartographic concepts and rules to their web mapping applications. This chapter will introduce a possible solution by adopting software agents in the architecture of Internet mapping facilities. In contrast to a traditional expert systems approach, the use of software agents emphasizes that their knowledge bases are located in hundreds of distributed small agent programs instead of a single huge omnipotent computer machine. The design of an intelligent software agent could facilitate the establishment of distributed cartography knowledge bases (CKB), which could help map users to access/distribute/exchange different cartographic rules, map symbols, color schemes, design layouts, via the Internet.