A practical approach to developing a web-based geospatial workflow composition and execution system

Motivated by lacking the capability of supporting geospatial workflow composition and execution in a Web environment from leading GIS (such as ESRI ArcGIS), we have developed a prototype system by integrating mature open source and commercial software packages in an innovative way. Our prototype system includes a client module for visual and interactive workflow editing based on Ptolemy II (a modeling and design system), a geospatial actor library representing 500+ ArcGIS geoprocessing tools for drag-and-drop-based workflow composition, a middleware as a workflow engine to schedule and execute ArcGIS Geoprocessing tools based on composed geospatial workflows, and, a Web-GIS to visualize original and derived data along a workflow processing pipeline. By reusing the mature software packages, we are able to complete the prototype development within weeks instead of months or years. A site selection problem that involves multiple geospatial operations are used to demonstrate the functionality and features of the prototype system.