Increasing Usability and Accessibility of GIS Technology Through Extension of Existing Software Tools

As the popularity of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology increases and its use extends from specialized users to the general public, tools available to users must adapt to take these changes into account. Virtual globes, such as Google Earth, are simplified GIS tools which do not include any of the data analysis and visualization capabilities of traditional GIS. However, the use of these applications can be extended by shifting the GIS functionality out of the application and into KML, through the dynamic manipulation of KML objects, allowing for some of the functionality of GIS to be reintroduced. Because KML objects include coordinates, they can be manipulated in a way which allows georeferenced data to be visualized within virtual globes in a way that is user-accessible, allowing for GIS to be more accessible to a greater number of users