A process‐driven geo‐analysis engine to support online collaborative geographic experiments

Geographic experiments, as a comprehensive research approach, are utilized to explore natural and social worlds. To help geographically dispersed people engage in geographic experiments and improve experimental outcomes, online collaborative geographic experiments have received increasing attention. As a new generation of geo-analysis tools, VGEs (virtual geographic environments) can provide computer-aided tools to serve geographic experiments. They can not only provide the collaborative GIS capabilities, but also implement geographic simulations using different cyberspace dispersed geographic models. For the complicated and interaction-intensive online collaborative geographic experiments, VGEs also need to help experts implement geographic experiments following a well-defined process. Nevertheless, the process is hardly considered in the existing support systems of collaborative geographic experiments. Therefore, we clarify the categories and relationships of interactions during the process of collaborative geographic experiments and design a process-driven geo-analysis engine. Through this engine, participants can maintain the processes of their collaborative geographic experiments, as well as implement interactions throughout the entire process. To verify the capability of the engine, it is used to support the case study on traffic noise simulation. The results suggest that the engine could assist the different geo-analysis applications with a well-defined process.