Geobrowser
A geobrowser is a software that can be used to use web-based geodata (e.g. geospatial services ) and geomedia (GIS client ).
field of use
Computer applications such as Google Earth , NASA World Wind or Microsoft's Bing Maps see themselves not only as "virtual globes" for distortion-free mapping of the earth and other celestial bodies, but increasingly as geobrowser, i.e. as a web-based interface between the user and geographically referenced data, so-called geodata. The virtual image of the blue planet serves as a well-known, attractive and emotional metaphor that brings clarity and order to the flood of information on the Internet.
functionality
Similar to web browsers such as Internet Explorer , Opera or Firefox , small programs (clients) have to be installed on the computer that offer essential basic functions such as display, search, save, navigate or print and, if necessary, reload the requested data from a central server .
Trends
Since an estimated 80 percent of the world's data have a spatial reference and the demand for geographic information services such as route or travel planners on the Internet is increasing sharply, a great future is predicted for computer programs in this sector of search, processing, analysis and visualization of spatial data and services. They compete on the one hand with conventional search engines, on the other hand with much more complex applications from the field of geographic information systems (GIS). Accordingly, software giants such as Microsoft, Google , Yahoo , Yandex , Baidu or Amazon are pushing into this promising advertising market and supplying each other and traditional providers such as ESRI or NASA with huge investments, for example in aerial and satellite images, and acquisitions from specialized companies, fierce competition.
The trend could lead to a kind of geoweb , where information is not organized text-based in catalogs or alphabetical directories, but visually in a three-dimensional virtual world.
Alternative terms: geoviewer, planet browser, earth browser, globe browser