Organisation terrestris GmbH & Co kg

Topic type		Target Type
Case Studies: Relate your experiences.		Technical / Developer

Additional Presenters
Name	Hayan Shin
Organisation	Gaia3D Inc.,
Email	[e-mail]

ID Number

199

Name	Morten Lindegaard
Organisation	Danish Geodata Agency
Email	[e-mail]

Paper Title	The Geodata Agency's Data Distribution platform
I can give a practical demo	yes

Paper Abstract (short)

An overview of the Agency's Data Distribution platform that handles more than 100.000.000 requests per month

Paper Abstract (long)

Digital distribution of geodata makes it possible to improve the efficiency and accuracy of our professional users' data collections on an ongoing basis. The Agency's Digital Map Supply is a national infrastructure to distribute geospatial data to all kind of users. Subscribers to the Digital Map Supply receive their geodata via web services, eliminating shipping time and resources. All services are based on OGC standards e.g. WFS, WMTS, WMS and WCS. Furthermore the Digital Map Supply exposes a range of REST and SOAP services for geocoding, address searches etc. As part of the common public-sector eGOVERNMENT strategy 2011-2015, the government and Local Government Denmark have agreed on a basic data programme. The programme contains a number of specific improvements and initiatives in public-sector basic data, which will underpin greater efficiency and growth. The Digital Map Supply is the infrastructure that is used to supply the geospatial data to public agencies, end users, private companies etc. Furthermore the Digital Map Supply also supports a number of INSPIRE compliant services that The Geodata Agency is responsible of - such as a cadastral WFS. The presentation will show the architecture behind the Digital Map Supply including the number of open source components such as PostGIS, MapServer, GeoWebCache and GeoServer. The Digital Map Supply has been in service for more than ten years and the architecture has evolved during that time moving from commercial software to open source software. Moreover the presentation will outline the future of the Digital Map Supply including the migration to a new, common National distribution platform for all common public-sector data.

Topic type		Target Type
Case Studies: Relate your experiences. Collaboration: data collection, data sharing, open standards.		Technical / Developer

Additional Presenters
Name	Mads Bj¿rn-M¿ldrup
Organisation	Danish Geodata Agency
Email	[e-mail]

ID Number

378

Name	Suchith Anand
Organisation	University of Nottingham
Email	[e-mail]

Paper Title	The importance of Open Source Geospatial Labs in widening Geospatial education worldwide
I can give a practical demo	no

Paper Abstract (short)

This paper describe the experiences learned for the establishment of ICA-OSGeo Lab Network to help spread geospatial science education

Paper Abstract (long)

The importance of Open Source Geospatial Labs in widening Geospatial education worldwide Suchith Anand, University of Nottingham, UK Charlie Schweik, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA Helena Mitasova, North Carolina State University Maria Antonia Brovelli, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Serena Cotezee, University of Pretoria, South Africa Phil Davis, GeoTech Center, Delmar College, USA Patrick Hogan, NASA, USA Raphael Moreno, University of Colorado, Denver, USA Jeremy Morley, University of Nottingham, UK Although there has been tremendous growth in geospatial science over the last decade, the number of universities offering teaching in geospatial science in developing countries is very low. There are number of factors for this including high cost of software, lack of trained staff etc. But with the advent and maturity of free and open source geospatial software many universities in developing countries across the world will be establishing courses in geospatial science in the next few years. It was with this bigger mission in mind that in Sep 2011, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the International Cartographic Association (ICA) signed an MoU with the aim of developing on a global basis collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organizations in open source GIS software and data. Within a span of one year, we now have established labs across the planet in 6 continents . We have now grown to 20 research labs across the world (6 in Europe, 3 in North America, 3 in South America, 4 in Asia, 3 in Africa and 1 in Australia). The three main aims of the ICA-OSGeo Lab Network are to provide expertise and support for the establishment of Open Source Geospatial Laboratories and Research Centers across the world for supporting development of open-source geospatial software technologies, training and expertise ; to provide support for building-up and supporting development of open source GIS training materials; to enable development of collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organizations in open source GIS for the purpose of creating a sustainable ecosystem for open source GIS globally. The availability of free and open source GIS will make possible for large number of universities especially in developing countries to also start courses in geospatial science. This will in true sense bring down the entry barrier for many students especially in developing countries to learn GIS. The OSGeo.orgÕs education and curriculum committee has a significant history of collaboration and established significant social capital among the network of participants. but up until now, we have only been able to achieve collaboration in the form of individual posts of metadata and links to educational material [2]. With the emergence of this lab network model, coupled with the right incentives, we are confident that this network can do more collectively on the education front, and we have not yet formed closer collaborative ties in the area of open geospatial application and research. Recently the authors listed above have been collaborating on a grant proposal to establish a new effort for this open geospatial lab network that mimics open source software collaboration and that includes three key components: (1) a coordinated teaching program; (2) a repository and a system for the management of new derivatives; and (3) a organized cross-node research program focusing on applications of open geospatial technologies to support local governance and management in several key environmental management areas. In this presentation, we will describe elements of this proposal, partly in an effort to encourage others at FOSS4G to consider joining in the effort, and to solicit other collaborative ideas from the audience.

Topic type		Target Type
Case Studies: Relate your experiences. Collaboration: data collection, data sharing, open standards. Education		People new to open source geospatial End User Students, Academics

Additional Presenters
Name	Charlie Schweik
Organisation	University of Massachusetts
Email	[e-mail]
Name	Helena Mitasova
Organisation	North Carolina State University
Email	[e-mail]

ID Number

48

Name	Clare Hubbard
Organisation	Met Office
Email	[e-mail]

Paper Title	The Met Office Open Data journey
I can give a practical demo	no

Paper Abstract (short)

In November 2011 the Met Office launched DataPoint an Application Programming Interface (API) for release of its Open Data in support of the GovernmentÕs desire for increased transparency and economic growth. Starting with just a handful of users the service has grown in terms of data, functionality and usage. This year the Met Office is making further developments responding to user feedback and ensuring INSPIRE compliance. This presentation will describe the journey of Met Office Open data so far and a forecast for the future.

Paper Abstract (long)

See short Abstract.

Topic type		Target Type
Case Studies: Relate your experiences. Collaboration: data collection, data sharing, open standards. Met Office Sponsorship - Session Keynote Presentation.		People new to open source geospatial Manager End User

ID Number

125

Name	Julien Michel
Organisation	CNES (DCT/SI/AP)
Email	[e-mail]

Paper Title	The Orfeo ToolBox applications engine : write once, use everywhere
I can give a practical demo	yes

Paper Abstract (short)

This talk will introduce the audience with some of the major recent improvements of the OTB library core system. The main focus of the talk will be the applications framework, an API allowing to write a high-level processing chains on top of the Orfeo ToolBox into an auto-descriptive plugin, which can then be used from standard engines provided by Orfeo ToolBox (command-line, auto-generated QT GUIs, Python or C++ API) or ad hoc engines for tailored integration in other tools (QGIS plugins, Monteverdi 2.0).

Paper Abstract (long)

Orfeo ToolBox is an open-source library developed by CNES since 2006 in the frame of the Orfeo program, which aimed at preparing institutional and scientific users to the use of the Very High Resolution optical imagery delivered by the Pleiades satellites. It is written in C++ on top of ITK, a medical imagery toolkit, and relies on many other open-source libraries such as GDAL or OSSIM. Orfeo ToolBox aims at providing generic means of pre-processing and information extraction from optical satellites imagery. In order to increase the interaction between end-users and researchers developing processing methods, OTB provides applications which make the use of these algorithms easier and more user friendly. In this talk, we will introduce the application framework, a new API to easily write and export OTB processing chains. As an image processing library, lots of code factorization in OTB relies on classes called filters, which implement a given algorithm. This ensures that almost no image processing operation is duplicated across several tools in the OTB environment, like Monteverdi or the OTB applications. However, a full OTB processing chain usually involves chaining several filters and setting their parameters, which might in turn derive from the user input parameters. This portion of code has never been properly factorized and led to the same processing chain being implemented in slightly different ways in Monteverdi and the applications for instance, thus increasing maintenance efforts, and frustration for the user who need to learn a new interface for each application. The OTB applications framework has been designed to resolve this issue, with the following motto : write the processing chain only once, and use it everywhere. It provides the user with a single high-level interface to all the applications, which greatly improves the ease of reuse. It is divided into two components : the application engine, which is an API to create new applications, and the application wrappers, which are tools to run the applications from different environnements. Both can be easily extended. The application engine mainly consists in a single base class for all applications. Only three customization points need to be implemented to create a new application : - The initialization method is the place were to describe the application. It includes the application name, documentation and tags, as well as the complete description of the application parameters. These parameters can be scalar types or OTB based types, and can be easily extended to create new types of parameters. They can be specialized to reflect their specificities, for example minimum and maximum values for numerical values, and also comes with default value and the classical mandatory flag, and a complete documentation. - Another method is provided to update parameters in interactive mode. This is useful to compute default values from some inputs already sets (for instance the ground footprint for ortho-rectification), but can be left blank in most cases. - Last, the execution method is the place where the processing chain is actually implemented : parameters are retrieved by interrogating the application, filters are set up and outputs are exported. A new application extending the base application is then compiled into a single dynamic library. This plugin can then be dynamically loaded, and the application it represents can be inquired to get the application documentation, its parameters ... The application wrappers consist in an API to dynamically load an application plugin from the library path, and a set of tools to generate interfaces for these applications. The loader performs a dynamic lookup from a given application name and a search path in order to find the corresponding dynamic library, and instantiate the application. It is also able to list all the available applications in a given path. This loader can then be used to dynamically build some interfaces to use the application. For instance, the command-line application launcher builds the command-line style options from the parameters description, while the graphical launcher generates a standalone QT interface for the same parameters. The loader and application API can also be used directly in C++, or in interpreted language like Python through SWIG, which allows to script high level processing chains involving several applications. This interface can also be used to write ad-hoc wrappers in order to dynamically build information on available applications. For instance, the applications reference documentation is automatically generated by a Python script, and so are the descriptive file of the applications for their integration into Sextante (and thus QGIS). Last, it can be used to integrate the applications in other software, such as Monteverdi 2.0. In its 3.16 version, OTB ships more than 70 applications, allowing to perform several high level tasks such as geometric or radiometric pre-processing, supervised classification, segmentation, stereo reconstruction from images pair, dimensionality reduction... This set can be easily extended by users such as scientist wishing to share their work with Orfeo ToolBox.

Topic type		Target Type
Development: new developments in products. Hacks and Mashes: novel solutions to our problems.		Manager End User Technical / Developer