A framework for connecting two interoperability universes: OGC Web Feature Services and Linked Data

Diverse studies have shown that about 80% of all available data are related to a spatial location. Most of these geospatial data are available as structured and semi‐structured datasets, and often use distinct data models, are encoded using ad‐hoc vocabularies, and sometimes are being published in non‐standard formats. Hence, these data are isolated within silos and cannot be shared and integrated across organizations and communities. Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) have emerged and contributed to significantly enhance data discovery and accessibility based on OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) Web services. However, finding, accessing, and using data disseminated through SDIs are still difficult for non‐expert users. Overcoming the current geospatial data challenges involves adopting the best practices to expose, share, and integrate data on the Web, that is, Linked Data. In this article, we have developed a framework for generating, enriching, and exploiting geospatial Linked Data from multiple and heterogeneous geospatial data sources. This proposal allows connecting two interoperability universes (SDIs, more specifically Web Feature Services, WFS, and Semantic Web technologies), which is evaluated through a study case in the (geo)biodiversity domain.     

Semantic Enablement for Spatial Data Infrastructures

Building on abstract reference models, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has established standards for storing, discovering, and processing geographical information. These standards act as a basis for the implementation of specific services and Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). Research on geo‐semantics plays an increasing role to support complex queries and retrieval across heterogeneous information sources, as well as for service orchestration, semantic translation, and on‐the‐fly integration. So far, this research targets individual solutions or focuses on the Semantic Web, leaving the integration into SDI aside. What is missing is a shared and transparent Semantic Enablement Layer for SDI which also integrates reasoning services known from the Semantic Web. Instead of developing new semantically enabled services from scratch, we propose to create profiles of existing services that implement a transparent mapping between the OGC and the Semantic Web world. Finally, we point out how to combine SDI with linked data.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Ian Williamson, Abbas Rajabifard and Mary-Ellen F. Feeny (eds), Developing Spatial Data Infrastructures: From Concept to Reality
Michael Batty and Paul Longley (eds), Advanced Spatial Analysis: The CASA Book of GIS     

Moving Code in Spatial Data Infrastructures – Web Service Based Deployment of Geoprocessing Algorithms

This article proposes a concept for offering complex geoprocessing functionality in service‐based Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). Today, geoprocessing in SDI is typically realized in a data driven manner. Applying the suggested “moving code” approach in a case study in the field of Spatial Decision Support proves its applicability. The proposed solution is analyzed and assessed in terms of gained efficiency, performance behavior and support for distributed development of geoprocessing functionality. In data and computation intensive SDI applications the deployment of moving code proves to be beneficial.     

Using Federated Catalogs to Improve Semantic Integration among Spatial Data Infrastructures

Nowadays, Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) play an important role in government agencies, at different levels: global, national, and local. They aim to improve the management and sharing of geospatial data. Nonetheless, these SDIs have been developed as information islands, in which a user's query is compared to metadata described only in their own catalog services. The lack of interaction among SDIs limits the potential of these infrastructures in providing geospatial data to a larger audience. This article presents a distributed architecture, based on a federation of SDIs which interact among themselves, using query propagation. This propagation facilitates data discovery and sharing. We also describe a distributed query processing service used to enable the resource discovery in distributed infrastructures.     

WebGIS的空间数据共享与互操作

WebGIS技术是目前实现空间数据共享的有效手段，但是，由于空间数据异构复杂性，空间数据共享与互操作的实现还存在大量的问题亟待解决。本文阐述了空间数据共享与互操作技术模式，介绍了地理标记语言GML及在WebGIS中应用的优势，提出了一种基于GML的WebGIS空间数据共享与互操作方案。     

Requirements for Next Generation Spatial Data Infrastructures-Standardized Web Based Geoprocessing and Web Service Orchestration

Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) have been widely accepted to exchange geospatial data among organizations. Today SDIs main focus lies on the provision of geospatial data in the form of distributed spatial web services, the retrieval through catalogues, and visualization in the form of Web Map Services (WMS). The hypothesis presented in this paper takes SDI's one step further by providing a method to process geodata in an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant way into information. Two case studies present the potential of standardized geoprocessing services. In addition, this paper addresses the problem of service chaining by providing a system architecture to implement complex geoprocessing models and workflows based on web services using Web Service Orchestration (WSO). The proposed methods utilize spatial standards provided by OGC, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and ‘mainstream IT’ standards provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) to establish a generic web service architecture for providing common geoprocessing capabilities (e.g. spatial algorithms, map algebra, etc.) for usage in SDIs.     

Matching INSPIRE Quality of Service Requirements with Hybrid Clouds

A lot of effort has been invested in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) during the last decade regarding interoperable standards for services and data. But still the scalability and performance of SDI services is reported to be crucial especially if they are accessed concurrently by a high number of users. Furthermore, laws and provisions such as the INSPIRE directive specify challenging requirements regarding the performance, availability and scalability of SDI services. This article presents a Hybrid Cloud architecture for matching INSPIRE‐related Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, without investing in rarely used hardware in advance, by occupying external third‐party resources on a pay‐as‐you‐go basis. The presented Hybrid Cloud is a composition of a local IT‐infrastructure (Private Cloud) and the computational resources of third‐party vendors (Public Cloud). The local infrastructure is laid out to handle the average main load of a service and in lasting peak times additional resources of external providers are allocated and integrated on demand into the local infrastructure to provide sufficient service quality automatically. A proof‐of‐concept implementation of the proposed Hybrid Cloud approach is evaluated and benchmarked with respect to INSPIRE‐related QoS requirements.     

基于共享数据库平台的空间数据互操作实现方法

简要回顾了空间数据互操作实现的主要方法,分析了基于共享数据库平台的空间数据互操作的优势、实现困难以及实现的条件,以及不同GIS软件在数据模型上的差异。提出了两种基于共享数据库平台在不同客户端实现空间数据互操作的模式,在此基础上基于OracleSpatial,对基于共享数据库平台的互操作进行了实验,重点实验了有向点对象和注记对象在不同的客户端之间的互操作,展示了其可行性。     

基于Oracle Spatial的空间数据集成互操作模型

从互操作实际需求出发,利用Oracle Spatial空间数据存储特性,根据不同层次的互操作需求,从本地互操作和Internet互操作2个层次提出了一种基于Oracle Spatial的集成互操作模型,从而兼顾了部门内部对互操作效率的要求以及部门外部对互操作广泛适应性的要求。     

An Application Domain Extension to CityGML for immovable property taxation: A Turkish case study

It is generally acknowledged that immovable property taxes are one of the main revenue sources for local government. The literature emphasizes that the administration of property taxes needs well-developed inventories or registers that provide complete and accurate records of the taxed properties and their legal-economic attributes. This requirement is generally fulfilled by Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) in which the coordinate exchange and sharing of geo-spatial data is provided by separate registers/information systems such as: cadastral systems, building and address registers. Recently, the Open Geospatial Consortium presented a core component of a 3D SDI in the form of an international domain standard for representing, storing and exchanging 3D city models. The CityGML allows the semantic and 3D geometrical representation of physical objects but does not deal with the legal and administrative aspects of the city objects which are required for the process of property taxation. This paper outlines the development of an Application Domain Extension (ADE) for the immovable property taxation domain that expands the CityGML data model with the legal and administrative concepts defined in Turkish Law. The study shows that this ADE could be a 3D national data model for municipal information systems and facilitate a more efficient taxation process, as well as providing data for urban planning, facility management and other municipal services.     

基于Oracle Spatial的空间数据互操作模式

随着空间数据获取的增长及各桌面GIS软件功能的日益增强,如何在不同的GIS软件之间实现空间数据的互操作和共享,已成为一个突出问题。本文介绍了Oracle Spatial及其在空间数据存储中的应用,提出了基于Oracle Spatial的空间数据互操作模式,并在此基础上进行了部分实验。     

基于Oracle Spatial的空间数据互操作模式

随着空间数据获取的增长及各桌面GIS软件功能的日益增强,如何在不同的GIS软件之间实现空间数据的互操作和共享,已成为一个突出问题。本文介绍了OracleSpatial及其在空间数据存储中的应用,提出了基于OracleSpatial的空间数据互操作模式,并在此基础上进行了部分实验。     

Building the World Wide Hypermap (WWH) with a RESTful architecture

The hypermap concept was introduced in 1992 as a way to hyperlink geospatial features to text, multimedia or other geospatial features. Since then, the concept has been used in several applications, although it has been found to have some limitations. On the other hand, Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) adopt diverse and heterogeneous service oriented architectures (SOAs). They are developed by different standard bodies and are generally disconnected from mass market web solutions. This work expands the hypermap concept to overcome its limitations and harmonise it with geospatial resource oriented architecture (ROA), connecting it to the semantic web and generalising it to the World Wide Hypermap (WWH) as a tool for building a single ‘Digital Earth’. Global identifiers, dynamic links, link purposes and resource management capabilities are introduced as a solution that orchestrates data, metadata and data access services in a homogeneous way. This is achieved by providing a set of rules using the current Internet paradigm formalised in the REpresentational State Transfer (REST) architecture and combining it with existing Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. A reference implementation is also presented and the strategies needed to implement the WWH, which mainly consist in a set of additions to current Geographic Information System (GIS) products and a RESTful server that mediates between the Internet and the local GIS applications.     

Semantic and syntactic interoperability in online processing of big Earth observation data

ABSTRACT

The challenge of enabling syntactic and semantic interoperability for comprehensive and reproducible online processing of big Earth observation (EO) data is still unsolved. Supporting both types of interoperability is one of the requirements to efficiently extract valuable information from the large amount of available multi-temporal gridded data sets. The proposed system wraps world models, (semantic interoperability) into OGC Web Processing Services (syntactic interoperability) for semantic online analyses. World models describe spatio-temporal entities and their relationships in a formal way. The proposed system serves as enabler for (1) technical interoperability using a standardised interface to be used by all types of clients and (2) allowing experts from different domains to develop complex analyses together as collaborative effort. Users are connecting the world models online to the data, which are maintained in a centralised storage as 3D spatio-temporal data cubes. It allows also non-experts to extract valuable information from EO data because data management, low-level interactions or specific software issues can be ignored. We discuss the concept of the proposed system, provide a technical implementation example and describe three use cases for extracting changes from EO images and demonstrate the usability also for non-EO, gridded, multi-temporal data sets (CORINE land cover).     

Spatially enabling Australia – the next decade

Abstract

A strategy for the development of the Australian spatial information industry called ‘Spatially Enabling Australia’ has recently been developed by the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information. It comprises three fundamental research programs and an integrated applications program. Research Program 1, ‘Positioning,’ underpins a full framework of continuous operating reference stations to ultimately enable all of continental Australia to be capable of real-time precise positioning services based on global navigation satellite systems. Research Program 2, ‘Automated Spatial Information Generation,’ addresses complex processing of multiple remote sensing sources. Research Program 3, ‘Spatial Infrastructures,’ helps form the foundation for development of an Australian Spatial Marketplace that will make accessible vast amounts of government held data under a new licensing and access regime which supports combination with user-generated content from the mass market. The three core programs are integrated with Program 4, ‘Applications,’ to support users from the Health, Defense and Security, Energy and Utilities, Urban Development, and Agriculture–Natural Resources–Climate Change sectors. Program 4 drives outputs from the three core research programs in sector-specific deployments for high impact. This will see a rapid acceleration of the use and value adding of information products and services that utilize spatial information. There are considerable research and development challenges that must be met in order to achieve the strategic outcomes.     

Designing Service Architectures for Distributed Geoprocessing: Challenges and Future Directions

In this paper we study the feasibility of using services offered by a Spatial Data Infrastructure as a basis for distributed service oriented geoprocessing. By developing a prototype we demonstrate that a Spatial Data Infrastructure facilitates rapid development of applications that solve typical problems for an existing risk management application. The prototype provides users with a distributed application that enables the assessment of fire damage areas based on land cover data in a given area. The services involved in the application include: Web Feature Services, Web Map Services, a Gazetteer Service, a Catalogue Service, and Geoprocessing Services. We present the architecture of the application and describe details about implementation‐specific issues. We conclude that current OGC specifications provide a sound basis for developing service oriented architectures for geographic applications; however, in particular for geoprocessing applications, we question the feasibility of the use of Web Feature Services as data sources for larger amounts of data and call for further research in this direction.     

Can Free (and Open Source) Software and Data be Used to Underpin a Self‐Paced Tutorial on Spatial Databases?

University College London's Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE) offers a number of Masters programmes in topics related to Geomatics, including Surveying, Hydrographic Surveying, Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Science. Data management, and in particular the technology and applications of Spatial Databases, forms a key part of the curriculum on these courses. Interest in Spatial Databases is, however, more widespread – especially with the increasing understanding of the relevance of geospatial techniques to fields as diverse as anthropology and architecture. This article describes the development and evaluation of a self‐paced hands‐on course on Databases and Spatial Databases for CEGE students, presented to students to complement and enhance in‐class teaching. The article focuses on both pedagogical elements of self‐paced learning and the suitability of Free and Open Source Software and Open Data (PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Quantum GIS, Open Street Map) for the Spatial Databases curriculum. The resulting material was evaluated by a cohort of 25 students in 2010, and their feedback (very positive) and the overall results provide an interesting insight into suitable methods to employ when teaching technical subjects to a cohort having differing background skill levels.     

空间信息网格的框架体系和关键技术

首先分析了网格兴起的背景和国内外在网格领域的研究进展,并结合空间信息自身的特点提出了空间信息网格的概念,接着建立了空间信息网格三层体系结构,最后阐述了空间信息网格的元数据目录、存储资源代理、互操作技术、智能体技术、空间信息网格服务以及安全机制等关键技术。