Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for searching, obtaining, and distributing geospatial information in peer-to-peer networks. A geospatial information application identifies regions of geospatial information available at various peer nodes. The regions may be multidimensional and time varying and are typically associated with associated with information layers and/or components. Regions that overlap with or otherwise correspond to a user requested target region are obtained from peer nodes. The obtained regions may be combined, displayed, marked, and/or stitched to respond to a request. Various content types such as raster or feature based geospatial content from various sources such as files, databases or Web services can be shared within the distributed network.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for accessing geospatial information. A geospatial toolkit including source, handler, and data modules is configured to access geospatial data from a variety of sources, parse the geospatial data, and provide geospatial data in a unified format. Parameters including source, layer information, boundaries, query filters, etc. are set to allow retrieval of diverse geospatial data from different sources while providing a unified presentation on a system interface. The geospatial toolkit can be implemented in a framework such as the Component Object Module (COM) or .NET framework.