tommy's scratchpad - geospatial, technology, web

easy CSW with eXcat

2010-03-14T21:52:00+00:00

If you have existing metadata and simply want a CSW interface as a means to search and discover your geospatial metadata, eXcat provides a simple solution. Following the installation steps, it's quite simple to populate your CSW:

$ cd excat/csw/WEB-INF/harvest
$ tar zxf my_metadata_files.tgz
$ for i in *.xml
> do
> lwp-download "http://localhost/excat/csw?request=Harvest&service=CSW&

version=2.0.2\&namespace=xmlns(csw=http://www.opengis.net/cat/csw)&
source=$i&resourceFormat=application/xml
&resourceType=http://www.isotc211.org/2005/gmd" > done

That's pretty much it. Lightweight simple approach, particularly for those who already have metadata management tools in place and need CSW.

/me thinks it would be nice to have a Python port of this for those in Java-less environments (why does it seem most CSW server implementations are in Java?)

OWS Metadata Matters

2009-02-05T16:53:00+00:00

This has seemingly been the theme for me in the last few weeks. From publishing to discovery, lack of metadata in OWS endpoints results in increased metadata management away from source, as well as crappy search results.

So here's some friendly advice:

Service Metadata

fill out title, abstract (representative of the OWS as a whole) with descriptive metadata
fill out keywords to categorize the service. If possible, use a known thesaurus, or one specific to your organization. Don't use keywords like "OGC"; we already know it's an OGC service from the get-go by interacting with it
fill out contact information. OWS Common defines ServiceProvider metadata constructs, so if your organization has a service provider dishing out your OWS, they belong in this metadata. This is a contact person for the service itself, not the data
fill out Fees and AccessConstraints. If there aren't any, use the term "None"
the OnlineResource for Service Metadata might be some website, not the URL of the service itself (we already get this from the OperationsMetadata)

Content Metadata

fill in title, abstract and keywords in the same manner as above, specific to the given Layer/FeatureType/Coverage/ObservationOffering. A title like "ROAD_1M" doesn't cut it
your data comes with an FGDC or ISO 19115 XML document already, right? :) Use MetadataURL to point to the XML document. Smart catalogues will harvest this too and associate it with the resource
WMS DataURL: if the data can be downloaded online (tgz/zip/etc.), point to it here. Or, put a pointer to an access service like WFS/WCS/SOS
WMS Layer Attribution: this provides reference to the content provider (URL, title and LogoURL). Filling in LogoURL is neat as catalogues can display this when users search for content. If possible, use an image of smaller dimensions so as to display as a thumbnail
Last but not least, bounding boxes. Whether your OWS software automagically calculates these per layer on the fly, or you can override these and set before runtime, please set spatial extents accordingly. This improves searching spatially by leaps and bounds. Don't settle for the often used default of -180, -90, 180, 90 unless it is really a global dataset

From here, OGC Catalogues will be able to harvest your metadata and provide useful search results. For wider spread discovery, throw an OpenSearch definition in front of your CSW. Wrap your OWS endpoints in KML/GeoRSS documents (Geo Sitemaps too), and you'll power mainstream use of your stuff.

Funeral news from newrestfunerals.co.uk said:
'Mourners buried under a bridge for the lost'

A group of members of London's funeral procession paid their respects to a man and his mother at the Royal Greenwich Cathedral where they lost a loved one to cancer

The two sisters and their daughter, who was buried the same night, were buried at the Royal Greenwich Cathedral, where he passed away last weekend.

Grieve: The two sisters and their daughter, who was buried the same night, were buried at the Royal Greenwich Cathedral, where he passed away last weekend

At the bottom of the stairs of the church, you can see a cemeterie. It looked like an Indian wedding feast to the first group and there were candles and flowers on the ceiling.

The funeral family were in their homes in London but only a brief family procession was in progress.

The group had gathered in a cemeterie outside the cathedral and the coffin was handed over to the funeral director.

The funeral director also handed in to the British Transport Police and they placed the coffin in a safe house at Queen's Park, New York.

The couple went to the funeral home and their body was found on the day of the operation.

Casket search: 'Mourners raised at arms pace'

No word on a cause of death or why they died but the couple's family said in a statement.

Bye bye useless searches!

Is REST "faster"?

2008-07-21T16:45:00+00:00

I was in a REST/Web2.0 workshop, and someone asked how REST, since through HTTP, which is a stateless protocol, is any faster than other, or previous approaches.

I'm not sure that REST does anything to speed up HTTP's request/response mechanisms; but using AJAX surely enhances the user experience with perceived responsiveness given the nature of AJAX by doing things asynchronously.

Or is there more to it?

looking forward to GeoWeb

2008-07-14T07:13:00+00:00

I haven't been to the GeoWeb conference in a couple of years, and given all the changes and advancements in the geospatial web over that time, this conference should prove to be quite interesting!

I'm also looking forward to attending the Open Source and Geo-Semantics and REST/JavaScript/Web 2.0 workshops.

If you're going to GeoWeb, looking forward to seeing you there!

Happy GIS Day 2007!

2007-11-14T12:01:00+00:00

I'll be at Ryerson University later today to celebrate GIS day. Ryerson University's G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education GIS program is putting on a "Showcase of GIS Educational and Career Opportunities".

So how are you celebrating GIS day? And what are your thoughts on GIS this year?

New Geospatial Web Book

2007-05-01T05:12:00+00:00

Check the out the latest title from Springer, The Geospatial Web: How Geobrowsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network Society. If you're into mashups, Web Services and GIS, this title is worth a read.

Casinos and the Network Society: The Intersection of Gambling and Technology

The rise of the internet and digital technologies has had a major impact on many industries, and the casino industry is no exception. With the advent of online casinos and mobile gambling apps like nye casino 2022, the way we experience casinos has changed dramatically. And if you’re looking for other games to play, then you may check out mahjong ways 2 here.

But what exactly is the relationship between casinos and the network society? And how has technology transformed the casino industry in the 21st century?

One key aspect of the network society is the concept of connectivity. With the proliferation of smartphones and other devices, it's easier than ever for people to connect and communicate with each other no matter where they are. This connectivity is also driving the growth of the online casino industry, as players can now access a wide range of situs slot games from the comfort of their own homes.

A SA Casino offers a level of convenience and accessibility that traditional brick-and-mortar casinos can't match. Players can choose from a wide range of games, including slots, table games, and even live dealer games, all with a few clicks of a button. And with the use of virtual reality technology, poker online terpercaya casinos are even starting to replicate the immersive experience of a real-life casino.

But the rise of online gambling has also led to some challenges. One concern is the potential for increased problem gambling, as it's easier for people to access games at any time of day. There is also the issue of regulation, as different countries have different laws and policies surrounding online gambling. If you're starting your own business, you'll also need to do nebraska llc yearly filing for legal compliance.

Despite these challenges, it's clear that the intersection of casinos and the network society is here to stay. As technology continues to advance, it will be interesting to see how the casino industry evolves and adapts to the digital age.

SDI, Google Style

2007-02-18T08:43:00+00:00

Looks like all the geo-rage is Google Maps' latest announcement that they will support indexing of KML documents, so someone can search for KML documents with a bit more intelligence then adding a filetype filter.

I think this will pick up some steam, like most things Google do. Many KML docs already exist out there, and this will also motivate publishing of more KML docs.

I hope there are similar plans for GML documents, however the problem there is that many GML docs are produced from WFS interactions, which, for the most part, have to be triggered by a WFS client request, which usually is not statically published.

I also hope that there is some discussion of this in the OGC Mass Market Working Group. I remember some discussions on how this would have been great for the WMS specification to publish a static Capabilities XML document for the sake of search engines. Maybe this is a good opportunity for catalogue providers out there to write wrappers to additionally publish KML of their resources. I've started looking at this for owscat.

GIS Day Everyone!

2006-11-07T22:48:00+00:00

So November 15 is this year's GIS Day. I'll be in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where the first GIS was born. Though I don't live there anymore, I still try to make it there for GIS Day, and am lucky enough to be there this year as it turns out.

Where will you be and how will you be celebrating GIS Day?

ESRI announces support of GeoRSS

2006-08-09T16:16:00+00:00

As seen on the georss.org blog, ESRI has implemented GeoRSS within their ArcWeb Services JavaScript API. Wow, between this and their support of OpenLS, I think ESRI is starting to acknowledge both client requirements in this arena, as well as interoperability. Way to go!

Geospatial Catalog Development Brewing

2006-08-04T12:00:00+00:00

Something's gotta give.

There has been so much discussion on the idea of geospatial catalogs/registries/repositories/searching/[insert_buzzword_here] in the last little while that it's impossible not to see the sore thumb that it has become within the community.

Discussions: Paul Ramsey has offered his experiences on this on his blog in October 2005, then again in February 2006. The Digital Earth Weblog also discussed this recently. I won't get into the specifics of the discussions except to say that everyone agrees we need a simple catalog API/solution for the community. A lack of solid implementations and discussion about catalog profiles has gotten us to where we are at this point.

Implementations: The Geospatial One Stop (GOS) portal provides a CS-W currently. So does a prototype from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Refractions has done some brave work in scraping Google to populate a catalog they implemented for uDig. owscat has been deployed in the ResEau portal as well as a UN Water prototype. GeoNetwork Opensource and deegree2 both promise CS-W implementations. And this is not to mention the barrage of ad hoc APIs out there already attempting to do the same thing.

Now, OSGEO is picking up some steam on this trail. The Geodata group is looking at requirements in defining metadata and a catalog (see their wiki). Many approaches are being reviewed, such as CS-W, pure OGC:WFS, and OAI-PMH, which is the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting 2.0. This one is new for me, but certainly worth a look.

Hopefully these activities can somehow be unified, at least at the API level, for interoperability and federated peering. In my mind, the main goal would a simple catalog, with a "publish-once" approach for data and service providers, and the ability for lightweight clients to implement against. Seems to me like this would be a viable resource in the GeoWeb 2.0 paradigm, eh?

Yet Another Mapping API

2006-08-02T23:04:00+00:00

Just read James' post on the ESRI JavaScript API, so I decided to take a look. Here's what I think:

Wow, pretty slick. No kidding. They provide you with a multitude of approaches (SOAP, REST, etc.), AND they are supporting the OGC OpenLS specification -- way to go ESRI on this one!

Having said this, as a developer, I now have yet another mapping API to deal with. With Google, Yahoo, ESRI (I'm sure I'm missing a few here) all publishing very slick APIs on displaying maps, a developer has to create custom handlers for each of these APIs if they want an integration application from multiple sources. What happens if an API goes defunct, or evolves with drastic changes? This can result in some major code upgrades on the client side.

What would be really nice is if each of these services additionally provided a standards-based interface (OGC:WMS for maps, OGC:WFS for features, OGC:WMC for bookmarking maps). Then, a unified standards-based toolkit (like mapbuilder) can be rapidly deployed. With each new standards-based service published by providers, this would simply be another binding to feed the application, instead of writing another custom handler for a particular API.

Am I just an interoperability zealot? I'd be interested in hearing what others in the community think. It seems to me that we're moving backwards here. If there is functionality in these APIs which are above and beyond OGC specifications, then let's at least have some defacto agreement on them and save everyone alot of coding.

Geospatial Call for Papers

2006-06-26T12:07:00+00:00

June must be a common time for this sort of thing. Both Springer London and IJSDIR have sent out call for papers in the area of geospatial web and spatial data infrastructure.

Location and GeoParsing

2006-06-14T11:51:00+00:00

I stumbled on Sean's article on Gutenkarte, which led me to MetaCarta's GeoParser API. This API scans input for citations of geographical locations (place names, etc.), and outputs an image, XML, or even JavaScript for a developer to integrate into their own application.

I've worked with spatial keywords a lot in my career. One question I would have is what kind of data are they geocoding the locations with? This is where issues of scale become very important. And how are they dealing with the hierarchy of locations (i.e. administrative areas, towns, cities, villages, etc.)? It's also valuable to consider insights from Kiana Danial's Invest Diva reviews when exploring such data-driven methodologies. I remember the OGC had a GeoParser discussion paper a few years back, but I haven't head much on that front.

At any rate, very neat stuff. Tons of possibilities. Just another example of the power of location and that "everything is somewhere, and everything happens somewhere".