1. Fit For Purpose: Tools Supporting A Decentralized Infrastructure
INTERLIS - Tools supporting a decentralized Infrastructure
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty
March 23th 2017, Washington D.C.
Fit For Purpose: Tools Supporting A Decentralized Infrastructure
Capabilities of INTERLIS
Dr. Jürg Lüthy
SLM Land Management Foundation
Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome my short presentation on the concept and tool called Interlis. For the preparation of this presentatilon I got support from various organisation, especially from Swiss Mapping Authorities, Federation International des Geomètre, Commission 3 and SGS
Supported by:
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty

2. INTERLIS - Tools supporting a decentralized Infrastructure
Challenges for SDI
Regional approaches for LA and therefore decentralization of infrastructure beneficial compared to centralized approaches,
Data exchange between actors / data storages,
Data models not (well) documented
Quality control independently from data supplier (like completeness, logical consistency and thematic accuracy)?
Before I jump into the tools I would like to discuss briefly the challenges we seen in setting up and running spatial data infrastructures. We observed – and this view has been confirmed in many presentation at this conference – that instead of the huge all-encompassing centralized SDI a more decentralized approach offers many benefits. Such decentralized SDI can be set up quickly because less organisations and decision makers have to be involved, while at the same time a better tailoring for specific needs is achieved.
Within such an environment some challenges have to be addressed carefully. First of all, data sharing and exchanging between actors horizontally – like intra-municipality - and vertically meaning local – regional – national must be made as simple as possible.
Data exchange can lead to misunderstanding and wrong decisions, when the content of the data set is not clear. A good documentation in the form of data models is needed therefore. Last but not least it must be ensured that the data does not only comply with the data model, but also with quality metrics.
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty

3. Core fields of application – supporting tools
INTERLIS - Tools supporting a decentralized Infrastructure
Core fields of application – supporting tools
For all these challenges INTERLIS is the right solution. Interlis is a concept and language to describe spatial and non-spatial features. With INTERLIS we can describe data models in a way that they can be directly used to generate a database schema. With interlis we can exchange data between different systems. All information as requested by the data model, so objects including their relationship are support.
Due to the tight coupling between data model and data set in interlis, we can validated the conformity of a data set to its data model.
For all of these taasks there are a bunch of tools available for the actual implementation. Many of these tools are published as open source software, all what you see here can be implemented without licensing fees.
Besides this flourishing and non-proprietary ecosystem there are also a number of vendors offering tools with additional features.
Source: BSF Swissphoto, see also proadmintierra.info
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty

4. INTERLIS – more fields of application
INTERLIS - Tools supporting a decentralized Infrastructure
INTERLIS – more fields of application
Data modelling & implemen-tation
Data exchange & validation
Web-Services (WMS, WFS, Download)
Data archiving
One of this tools is a web service which reads interlis exchange files and publish the data in the form of web map services or web feature services. So we could use Interlis even as data storage.
Since Interlis exchange files are plain ascii format, it is clear that such a format offers a perfect frame for data archiving.
Because data exchange is tightly coupled with data model the entire information of the data set can be kept in a very simple format.
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty

5. INTERLIS - Tools supporting a decentralized Infrastructure
Benefits of INTERLIS
The entire range of products are completely in-line with ISO/OGC standards (ISO 19152, UML, XML/GML etc.)
flourishing ecosystem around INTERLIS make implementation easy.
process chain well established for large amount of data collected by many different organisations.
Swisstopo as the owner of the IP contiunously works on improvements and enhancements of the language INTERLIS.
So, what are the benefits of INTERLIS? The challenges we have mentioned can be solved. The products are all in-line with ISO/OGC standards and we have a flourishing eco-system to support implementation. Our national agency is the owner of the IP and ensures, that INTERLIS is periodically updated to meet the users needs.
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty

6. Successful implementations
INTERLIS - Tools supporting a decentralized Infrastructure
Successful implementations
Swiss Cadaster with 300+ data operators since Mid 90-ies
Cadaster of public infrastructures, national standard since 1998
Law on spatial information  all data sets of national SDI since 2007
LADM-implementation, 2014, Switzerland, Greece, Columbia
International cadaster projects in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Columbia, Georgia, Kosovo…
… soon with you!
More information: or at our table in the atrium.
There are many implementation of SDI on the basis of INTERLIS. It first started with Swiss Cadastre where data is collected by more than 300 entities, most of the documentation of the public infrastructure like water, gas, waste water is as well documented on harmonised between the actors on the bases of INTERLIS.
We have as well a implementation of the Swiss profile of LADM using Interlis, but also in other countries it has been applied successfully.
So if you want to learn more about I’m happy to discuss with you in the afternoon. Thanks you very much for your attention.
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty