U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological Survey

National Geospatial Technical Operations Center

Towards a More Consistent Framework for Disseminated Spatial Computing for The

National Map

Michael P. Finn, Barbara S. Poore, and Mark R. Feller

Cyberinfrastructure Sessions

Outline

Motivation

The National Map, Goals, and Research OGC Standards and Web Services The Framework and Programming Interfaces Summary

Motivation

The computer-communications revolution blurred the distinctions among classes of computers and networks Resulting in integrated systems that transmit and process all types

of data and information (Stallings, 2007) Timely and accurate coverage of geospatial data at multiple

scales require a federated approach NSDI/ GSDI The National Map

Recent growth of integrated computer/ communications systems has resulted in a body of work on interoperability

Requirements for normalizing access to spatial data have resulted in ongoing efforts to provide standards-based specifications for acquiring and exploiting data (Kralidis, 2007)

The National Map, Goals, and Research

The National Map is the US’ topographic map for the 21st century Leverages developments in web services and partnerships Permits interactive public access to high-quality geospatial

data from many sources Designed to be a seamless, continuously maintained,

nationally consistent set of geographic data

USGS offers a series of Web map and data services Goal of presenting system developers and Web application

users with access to geographic data content

The research focus is on exploring new processes for information access and dissemination

OGC Standards and Web Services

Spatial information can be a unifier of many technology disciplines Need a common context, such as interoperability

mechanisms espoused by OGC (Lemmens, 2008)

Focusing on standard profiles To enhance The National Map’s WMS and map layer design

A key challenge is to produce standard profiles that are customized for USGS products While attaining stability between OGC standards and

proprietary data formats and protocols

The Framework for The National Map Showing focus on OGC Standard Profiles

(adapted from NRC, 2007)

The Framework and Programming Interfaces

The catalog database is an inventory of WMS data sources that contribute to The National Map

A fundamental requirement of geospatial data providers is to deliver data through a WMS (Raskin, 2004)

The National Map requires FGDC-compliant metadata for each layer

The Catalog API Query Service is the primary mechanism for making the database available to outside users and applications

The National Map Catalog Layer Summary

by major category

ADMINISTRATIVE

BOUNDARIES

CLIMATOLOGY/ CLIMATE CHANGE

COASTAL STUDIES

DIGITAL ATLASES

ELEVATION

ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING/ ASSESSMENT

GEOGRAPHIC NAMES

GEOGRAPHY

GEOLOGY

GULF COAST RISK ASSESSMENT

HYDROGRAPHY

IMAGERY

LAND USE/LAND COVER

NATIONAL GRID

NATURAL HAZARDS/WEATHER

PUBLIC LAND RECORDS

STRUCTURES

TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS

TRANSPORTATION

Currently, there are approximately 3,300 layers available of which 2,080 are available to the PUBLIC through 213 services organized into these 20 major categories

Summary

This research effort is a cost-effective advancement Many USGS geospatial products are already built on OGC

standards

It addresses a critical question concerning the creation of OGC standard profiles to bring layers in The National Map databases into conformance with OGC standards

Thus, providing a consistent framework for computing for and from The National Map by normalizing access to spatial data

REFERENCES

Kralidis, Athanasios Tom (2007) Geospatial Web Services: The Evolution of Geospatial Data Infrastructure, in The Geospatial Web: How Geobrowsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network Society, A. Scharl and K. Tochtermann, editors. London: Springer-Verlag.

Lemmens, Mathias (2008) New Age (Part 1). GIM International: The Global Magazine for Geomatics, Volume 22, Issue 1 (January).

National Research Council (2007) A Research Agenda for Geographic Information Science at the United States Geological Survey. Mapping Science Committee. 156 pages.

Raskin, Rob (2004) Guide to Distributing Your Data Products Via WMS 1.1.1: A Tutorial for Data Providers. Internet at http://oceanesip.jpl.nasa.gov/esipde/guide.html. Last accessed 28 March 2008.

U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological Survey

National Geospatial Technical Operations Center

Towards a More Consistent Framework for Disseminated Spatial Computing for The

National Map

Michael P. Finn, Barbara S. Poore, and Mark R. Feller

http://cegis.usgs.gov/index.html