Development of FlexiMap Electronic Map System

Project summary

FlexIm has recently successfully finished a development project, partly funded by the government,...The product is called FlexiMap. Our Technical Director, Knut Olav Sunde, has been a member of the steering committee...run by the Norwegian Military Geographical Service (FMGT). A few words about the system..: With FlexiMap, a GIS application can very easily include graphical presentations of data using maps. The application developer no longer needs to be a map specialist or know about map data interchange standards. With FlexiMap ready-to-use maps, application developers can include maps as easily as other ActiveX software plug-ins. The map display system is very fast and optimised for interactive use. Information content is automatically adapted to the actual scale, ranging from, for example, 1:2,000,000 to 1:5,000. In Norway the map data is prepared for FlexiMap by a map distributor, Ugland Totalkart (UTK). Their main product is the FlexiMap-based ready-to-run map. The map data is obtained from the Norwegian Mapping Authority in a license agreement. We find FlexiMap a very interesting approach in the context of data logistics in future GIS. I strongly recommend a thorough study of the concept, which has great potential for presenting electronic maps to a greater number of users. The system even has a capability to handle 3D map display, time variance (4-D), and dynamic data. Expectations of up-to-date and easy-to-use data with high quality are increasing. It is in this setting we find FlexiMap promising and actually an overdue solution. We support FlexIm's effort to establish international experiments with the concept, and regard it as a natural extension to the on-going PETIT project. Yours sincerely, Knut O. Flåthen (signature) Director General