Authors: Adena Schutzberg, OGC News editor and Lance McKee, OGC User editor

If you have a mobile device such as a BlackBerry 7520 or 7100i cell phone loaded with software called "Spot," you can download map images from any Web server that makes maps available through an implementation of the OpenGIS™ Web Map Server (WMS) Specification.

Skylab Mobilesystems, the German software company that developed Spot, maintains an automatically generated global list of WMS servers on its website. The number of such servers as of June 11, 2005 was 913 and the number of layers was 307736. Not all these servers are open to the public, but growth in the numbers -- and in the practical value of Spot -- continues to rise at a rapid rate as the WMS standard grows in popularity.

Skylab Mobilesystems also provides a free OGC WMS-implementing client that is
is implemented in J2ME and specifically designed for mobile devices. It was developed as a demonstration of technology and does not include all the features of Spot. It supports zooming, scrolling, unlimited layer selection, and other features. A user manual is available in German and English.

Figure 1: BlackBerry 7520 is one mobile device supported by Spot.

Author: Karl Benedict – Senior Research Scientist
Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico
MSC01 1110
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131USA
Tel: 505.277.3622 x234
Email: kbene@edac.unm.edu
http://edac.unm.edu

The University of New Mexico Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC), has been providing geospatial data and services for a wide range of uses since 1964. As a longtime partner in the New Mexico Resource Geographic System Program (RGIS) [http://rgis.unm.edu], EDAC has constructed and maintains the state's online spatial data clearinghouse. RGIS is dedicated to advancing applications of geographic information system technology within New Mexico's State agencies and for local government and private industry.

Like most other university-based or state government-based spatial data centers, EDAC has seen steady growth in the requests for both data and services. The statewide clearinghouse managed by EDAC now delivers over 500,000 datasets/year to end users over the Web, and EDAC clients in diverse fields present EDAC developers with a increasing set of application requirements. Application domains include, for example, public health and epidemiology, environmental analysis and mapping, transportation security, air quality, disaster planning and management, and border security and monitoring. The EDAC staff have continually updated the Center's technology approaches to help meet this growing demand. The most significant new technology development for geospatial data centers is the arrival of open interfaces for Web-based geoprocessing architectures.

The open framework for Web-based delivery of data and services that EDAC is building benefits clearinghouse users, clients and application developers. As the different elements of the system come online, Clearinghouse users find it increasingly easy to find, view and access data in the extensive RGIS library. Clients get solutions that leverage both their legacy systems' capabilities and the new capabilities offered by Web Services, and they minimize their technology risk and vendor dependence. Developers are able to efficiently build and reuse service components, thus delivering applications more quickly at lower cost, while leveraging existing EDAC and RGIS resources.

This OGC User story borrows from an article by Tyler Mitchell in his Weblog on Sep. 19, 2005 and from an article in GIS Monitor, "Imagery For the Katrina Relief Effort," by Matteo Luccio.)

by Lance McKee
OGC User editor

The Katrina website at Telascience

Many people, organizations, agencies and companies in the geospatial community collaborated to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Their work reflects the growing importance of interoperability based on open, consensus standards for emergency response and preparedness.

By Lance McKee with Marc Van Liedekerke and Panos Panagos of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, TP 280 I-21020 Ispra (VA) - Italy

The characteristics of the soil beneath our feet are important not just for farmers, gardeners, landscapers and foresters, but also for builders, civil engineers, hydrologists, geographers, archeologists, environmental managers, conservation groups, ecologists, and, of course, soils scientists. The European Soil Portal, implementing the OpenGIS Web Map Server (WMS) Specification, came online recently to serve a wide variety of professional, business and academic users.

One problem that WMS helped solve was that there were previously a number of important soils databases on computers in Europe, but most were not being made available to the public because some of the data is copyrighted. WMS, which provides views of data without providing the data itself, offered the perfect way to make data viewable online while protecting copyright. Visitors to the site can examine the data, and, if they want to buy it, they can order it online for delivery via the internet or on CD-ROM.

Figure 1: SOMIS map showing Topsoil Organic Carbon Content data.

In this issue of OGC User we see OGC Web Services helping with Katrina response, soils data distribution, a statewide data center, and little devices that access a very big and open world of data. Here are the lessons:

• Katrina: Upgrading systems to deploy open geospatial interoperability interfaces is an inexpensive and seemingly unremarkable technical detail, but it enables the critical networking of diverse disaster information resources that provide important complementary views of the real world.
• European Soils Portal: When you want to give users a single point of access to a disparate collection of spatial data, some of which is copyrighted, upgrade the servers with interfaces that implement the OpenGIS® Web Map Server Implementation Specification. List the servers’ hyperlinks in a portal, and then everybody’s data can be easily found and seen, but nobody’s data can be altered or taken for reuse without permission.
• New Mexico: Spatial data centers that have accumulated state-wide data sets and state-wide responsibilities for archiving and serving the data, and for developing applications that use it, weren’t "born" with open solutions. But they can merge onto the open spatial Web superhighway at their own pace, upgrading with open interfaces, creating standard metadata, and gradually extending the benefits of openness to their users and to their development staff.
• Accessing the WMS world through handhelds: Location based services don’t need to be strictly proprietary services. Skylab Mobilesystems shows us that both proprietary and open source software can give handheld devices access to free or commercial data that enables useful applications, thanks to OGC standards.

Stay tuned! We will soon be upgrading OGC User to make it easier for us to publish OGC user success stories and easier for readers to propose, find and automatically receive them. We invite your suggestions.

Google's recent routing and imagery offerings and the well publicized map and imagery offerings from MapQuest and Microsoft have sparked awareness that there's e-business potential in Web-based delivery of geospatial information. But these companies are just playing catch-up with GlobeXplorer, a company with a long and successful geospatial e-business track record, a sophisticated Web services based technical approach, and a commitment to open standards.

GlobeXplorer, a data aggregator, provides access to the world's largest online library of commercial earth imagery. Using a variety of mechanisms - a portal, an application programming interface (API), and Web services, GlobeExplorer distributes interactive maps and aerial and satellite imagery to businesses and researchers around the world. Unlike many competing imagery providers, they are not just serving images. They are also integrating spatial data on the fly using Web services, including Web services that implement the Open Geospatial Consortium's OpenGIS Web Feature Service (WFS) and Web Map Service (WMS) Specifications. They also offer "wire service" access to their backend processing system through servlets that run on their Web servers.