Anja Hopfstock
GIS-Specialist
Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG)
Germany

Biography
Dr.-Ing. Anja Hopfstock is a GIS-Specialist and cartographer in the section International Affairs of the division for Geoinformation at the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, Germany. She has been deeply involved in several international projects dealing with cross-border harmonisation of spatial data. She was a member of the INSPIRE Thematic Working Group ‘Hydrography’ and currently facilitates the INSPIRE thematic cluster for Topographic and Cadastral Reference Data. In the ELF project she is the leader of work package ‘ELF data specifications’ developing data as well as product and service specifications for the European Location Framework.

Abstract
Using INSPIRE Data for Cartographic Purpose: The BaseMap Experience

Co-Author: Dominique Laurent, IGN France

One of the key outputs of the ELF (European Location Framework project of the CIP ICT PSP Programme) project is BaseMap, a web pyramid of digital cartographic images at different zoom levels. BaseMap is supposed to be produced using INSPIRE-based data and SLD standard to document portrayal rules. However, the INSPIRE data coming out of WFS in GML format can't be used directly by WMS and has to be integrated first in a database; in addition, the INSPIRE data models are generally too complex and not adapted for mapping purposes: overlaps between INSPIRE themes, potential presence of deprecated features, properties not directly attached (as attributes) to geometry in theme TransportNetwork. Several options have been investigated: common process to flatten and simplify INSPIRE GML data, transformation of existing data to a simplified profile of INSPIRE data models or even use of existing data and transformation of the SLD (from INSPIRE-based terminology to national one). The fitness-for-purpose of INSPIRE data content for cartography has also to be questioned, all the more so as cartography was not main purpose for some INSPIRE themes: typically, some key information is missing, such as attributes enabling classification of named places and of geographical name. Furthermore, as INSPIRE data models are quite flexible, INSPIRE data may remain rather heterogeneous: it is the case for instance of administrative units (different number of levels according to countries, administrative units with or without water, etc). To summarise, this paper aims to show the issues of using INSPIRE data for mapping purposes and to propose potential solutions, either by evolution in the INSPIRE data specifications or by adapted methodology.