The aim of the CHIS - Cultural History Information System project was to design and build a collaborative spatially enabled system for archiving, analyzing and visualizing datasets of cultural history. Through the interdisciplinary aspects of the various partner involved, a more holistic view on the overall cultural history of a wide region (including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China) can be achieved. The CHIS therefore serves as a communication platform for information dissemination.

The main focus of the CHIS is to offer a map-centered system approach in order to locate as well as display objects by their geographical location. It also has the purpose to visualize and communicate the research outcomes of all project partners promoting the involved disciplines and increasing public awareness about this remote area of the world.

In future, special focus will be put on the examination of methods and concepts for visualization and communication processes with regard to topics like information access, usability, engineered serendipity (where the user is able to ‘browse’ through a web delivered interactive integrated media repository), and the differences between various interdisciplinary expert/non-expert user groups.