Digital Multidisciplinary, Interactive and Dynamic Atlas for Luxembourg and the Greater Region - LUXATLAS

Coordinating Institution: Université du Luxembourg
Contracting Partner(s): Universität des Saarlandes
Other Partner(s): CEPS/INSTEAD , CRP Gabriel Lippmann , Direction de l'Aménagement du Territoire , Fondation Forum Europa , Musée national d'Histoire et d'Art , Musée national d'histoire naturelle , Université Libre de Bruxelles (B) , University of Liège , University of Metz , University of Trier (Dept. of Philology) , Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen (D) , Université Henri Poincaré, Nancy (F)
From: 01/05/2007
To: 30/04/2010
Budget: 500,000.00€
Contact(s): Pauly Michel

Summary

In the context of the Luxatlas project a digital atlas for the Greater Region – territory formed by Luxembourg, Wallonia, Lorraine, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate - called “GR-Atlas” has been established. The main challenge of the project is the implementation of cross-border interdisciplinary maps for the entire Greater Region. The atlas is designed as a WebGIS-application (geographic information system on the Internet) using the software ESRI ArcGIS Server, Microsoft SQL Server and the open-source content management system Joomla!.

The atlas has a strong focus on historical themes, but is open for all disciplines. As a multidisciplinary project, the atlas unites thematic maps analyzing and visualising data coming from the social, human and natural sciences. The application allows the user to interactively discover the Greater Region. The client can zoom in and out or simply pan the map into the desired direction. In addition, the identify tool allows to obtain additional information of the represented objects. The entire application is implemented in such a way to quickly implement the users’ map requests.

Explanatory texts as well as pictures, graphics, statistics, links and references are available for each map and the most important mapped objects and can be discovered interactively through the web mapping application. The main layer of the atlas is a base map of the Greater Region, which consists of a shaded relief representation, the water bodies, as well as the major streets and railroads. After working out the database structure and the bilingual graphic user interface (german/french) as well as setting up the first prototype of the WebGIS in 2008, in 2009, the layout of the graphical user interface has been improved and the functionality of the WebGIS has been enlarged.

A part of the accompanying commentary texts has been translated into a second language. Several new authors have been found and will contribute further maps for the project. After the RWTH Aachen in 2008, the University Nancy 2 began to take part in the project. At the beginning of the year 2009 eleven monolingual thematic maps were available in the map portal, at the end of the year 2009 a total of sixteen thematic maps and fourteen accompanying texts are implemented. So far, twelve of these texts are available in German and French. The project has won the first price of the “Interregional research price of the Greater Region 2009” and ESRI’s “Special achievement in GIS 2009” award.

Publications

The article of the project itself are a kind of publication in the Internet.

Figure 1: Hard Coal Mining Zones

Figure 2: Maps Soils & Glass Industries