52°North Spatial Information Research GmbH

exploring horizons

Blog

Exchangeable Encodings Getting in Shape

by Leave a Comment

Filed Under: GSoC, Sensor Web Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The time is flying by and soon we reach midway of the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with 52°North. It is the typical time in between – I already managed to meet the first milestones, but there is no proper product yet. Catching up with the changes from the SOS main development branch is a constant challenge, but the infrastructural changes within the “Exchangeable Encodings for SOS” project are slowly but continuously leading towards a robust and standardized, yet limited, encoding plugin API (application programming interface).

The main use case is the request for observations (GetObservation request) that could be delivered in CSV (comma separated values) format for legacy applications, WaterML2.0, an upcoming OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) data transfer standard for the hydrological domain, possibly netCDF (Network Common Data Form), also an OGC standard for meteorological applications, and in O&M (Observations & Measurements) for the generic use within sensor networks and spatial data infrastructures.

An open question is whether there is a need to also encode sensor and feature information in different format (affecting DescribeSensor and GetFeatureOfInterest requests). And which other encoding schemes would be interesting? Please add your ideas in the comments! We are starting to document the preliminary API on the project’s wiki site:

more >

Sensor Observation Service Installer and Back-end

by Leave a Comment

Filed Under: GSoC, Sensor Web Tagged With: , , , , ,

What’s the benefit of an awesome software if it’s too complex to use? Will you use google.com if, in addition to what you want to search for, you have to specify what a particular thing looks like or how you want google to search for you? The answer is no.

This year’s Google Summer of Code project “SOS Administrator” focuses on the usability of the SOS. The basic purpose of an SOS Administrator is to make SOS deployment and use as user-friendly as possible. No more editing configuration files, no more editing and saving global properties headaches !

We aim to provide two main deliverables. One is a web-based installer and the other is an administrative back-end.

more >

Harnessing the power of OpenStreetMap in WPS

by Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Geoprocessing, GSoC Tagged With: , , ,

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a community-driven project which aims to provide a free, editable map of the entire world to users. This is in stark contrast to other mapping services which tend to charge for API usage. Recently, major vendors such as Wikimedia[1], Apple[2], and Foursquare[3] have started using OSM to power the mapping service in their products, which serves as testimony to the growing completeness and popularity of the project. The project itself is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.

As such, OSM has the potential to be a rich and useful datastore for 52°North’s Web Process (WPS), which aims to provide standardization in geo-processing on the web. In particular, we would like to provide on-the-fly transformation of OSM data to one or more of other popular GIS formats, such as Shapefiles or GML. This is the motivation for the Google Summer of Code 2012 Project: On-demand transformation of OSM Data into common GIS formats.

more >

Intelligent Farming by Applying the Web of Things Paradigm

by 2 Comments

Filed Under: GSoC, Sensor Web Tagged With: , , ,

Agriculture in India boasts it is the single largest economic activity in the country, employing about 40% of the population and feeding just over a billion people. By 2030 the Indian population will account for 18% of the total world population. In order to provide good quality grains and cereals to their home, farmers need to employ intelligent and cost efficient farming practices which maximize production while minimizing the use of precious resources such as water and nutrients.

This can be achieved by deploying sensors and applying the principles of the Web of Things. The immediate goal is to provide growers with the ability to precisely monitor and control the use of water and nutrients to plants in these production settings, based upon daily plant requirements. An example of such a Web of Things application is AgriSenseBox – an instance of the 52°North SenseBox project.

more >