A Geographic Information System Integrated with Internet Technology and Virtual Reality

Spatial variation information used in precision agriculture usually is obtained by manual sampling, satellite imaging or aerial photo techniques. These techniques are suitable for the establishment of GIS of large field areas while for small agricultural sectors these techniques are comparatively costly. For small agricultural sectors, the needs to establish GIS exist for many applications. This study presents an integrated system comprising GPS, GIS, stereo machine vision, panorama image, and image database. The field information can be retrieved by stereo vision and panorama images that are combined with digital map layers and information management interface. The goal of the system development is to efficiently digitized field information and allow for later retrieval, display and analyses of field information. The major components of the system include the GPS, electronic compass, two CCD cameras mounted on an automatic rotary stage, image processing functions and integration software. There are three layers of the system database. They are the layer for positioning information acquired by GPS and electronic compass, the layer of stereo images linked with positioning information, and the layer of panorama images generated from stereo images. The acquired field images and positioning information are integrated into GIS in a personal computer and can be immediately transferred to a web server for remote access. Range estimation of objects in the field can be estimated through stereo images and visual examination of field information can be easily achieved with panorama images. Finally, spatial mapping system was applied to construct the map layer information and corresponding attribute information of spatial location and multiple images database of spatial coordinates. These case studies were NTU campus, Da-An forest park, An-Kang farm of NTU in Taipei city and experimental field for precision farming at TARI. In addition, the virtual reality can be displayed through Internet GIS, and provide the real time information to the general users, and then obtain the query results from the Web browser. The result include layer attribute information and site images that can show on the map and out put by internet.