BANCO: an SVG-based approach to create Web sites for the management of remote sensing, spatial and non-spatial data

This paper introduces BANCO (Browsing Adaptive Network for Changing user Operativity) - a software prototype designed to explore how to support users in their interaction with remote sensing, spatial and multimedia data accessed from remote Web servers - and how standard technologies evolve spatial and non-spatial Web sites. Meeting the request of new software environments, technologically up to date and handling both remote sensing and spatial data, BANCO proposes a novel architecture, in which users can, at the client side, customize their environment according to their role, culture and needs. As far as new technologies are concerned, BANCO relies on Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) - the recommendation of W3C for representing vector graphics on the Web - which is applied to specify not only the display properties but also the interaction mechanisms and the behaviour of 'objects' and tools, well beyond its original scope of mark-up language for vector graphics. The prototype is illustrated within a case study aimed at monitoring Alpine glaciers on the Web via information derived from remote sensing images.