Vol.44-5 ABSTRACT5

Abstract

The usefulness of GIS was clearly proved by academia's voluntary after the great earthquake disaster in 1995. The Ministry of Construction organized the GIS Research Committee to investigate putting GIS to practical use and developing the spatial data framework indispensable to GIS. The government recognized the importance of using GIS, therefore it established the Liaison Committee of Ministries and Agencies Concerned with GIS to examine how to build up the National Spatial Data Infrastructure of Japan.
 The Geographical Survey Institute, belonging to the Ministry of construction, started to develop the prototype of the spatial data framework as a precursor of the framework data of a specific product, named Digital Map 2500 (Spatial Data Framework). The first datasets of two major metropolitan areas were released in April 1997 and the second datasets of another two regions were published in succession.