GeoRSS-powered “Dashboard” for Geodata.gov

The Carbon Project is pleased to announce it has been selected by the 2009 National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP) to develop an open source desktop dashboard for Geodata.gov, the federal government service for maps and data. The project will develop a free application to enable “at-a-glance” visualization of geospatial assets and monitoring of Geospatial One-Stop (GOS) Portal search functions.

A video preview of the “GOS Dashboard” is available here.

This effort is important because the GOS Portal has matured to a point where broad uptake is now dependent on the capacity to make data and services easy for people to discover, access and use. Currently, the NSDI community doesn’t have an easy way to integrate GOS Portal search functions into the desktop environment. The GOS dashboard will help fill this gap.

The GOS Dashboard is powered by GeoRSS and builds on our experience developing GeoRSS applications for Spatial Data Infrastructures. The Dashboard is based on Microsoft Gadgets and enhances common RSS functions with the ability to configure searches, view geodata footprints on a mini-map, and access desktop GIS applications from ESRI and other vendors directly with the data people find.

The software will be jointly designed in support of governmental activities by The Carbon Project, the US Army Corps of Engineers and other FGDC representatives and based on key business requirements.

- Jeff