SDI "Cloud" Publishing - Bill gets secure access to WMS

This new YouTube video highlights the CubeWerx Identity Management Server (IMS). IMS lets organizations publish their OGC Web Services in a web-enabled collaborative framework for sharing secure and non-secure geospatial web resources with users inside and outside their organizations. This product enhances standard web services by implementing a secure distributed framework that supports Authentication, Single Sign On (SSO) and Role-based Access Control. This video follows “Bill” as an SDI manager grants him some basic access to a WMS - to a real internet "cloud".

- Jeff

(See what happens next to Bill)

What’s in a Geoname? Our world

(updated May 2010) Access to consistent, reliable and local geographic names information is essential for understanding communities and geosocial dynamics. In many situations, geographic names provide one of the most important keys for referencing and accessing a variety of other information. And Geonames databases, called Gazetteers, are an information resource for representing places, groups of people and cultures - and one of the best ways to maintain this resource is locally, closest to the people that know it, and then share it with others through online services.

Since this resource is so important, there's growing global interest in sharing and updating geographic names across a standard Web-based service interface that's not controlled by any one organization or group. In this environment an important way to ensure Geonames information is open and accessible is through the OGC Web Feature Service (WFS). The WFS standard defines an interface for specifying requests for retrieving and updating geographic features across the Web using platform-independent calls – and a profile of WFS is designed specifically to support Geonames.

The Gazetteer Profile of the Web Feature Service, or WFS-G for short, is the result of two major activities - an OGC Best Practice describing a Gazetteer Profile of the Web Feature Service Specification and an ISO draft standard for geographic identifiers (ISO 19112). The WFS-G profile traces its legacy to the OGC Geospatial Fusion Services (GFS) interoperability initiative where an OGC Gazetteer interface was defined, tested and implemented and eventually published as an OGC Discussion Paper. The standardization process in the ISO TC 211 led to a separate mature draft standard defining "Spatial referencing by geographic identifiers" (ISO 19112) that defines an abstract model to be implemented by a gazetteer service. The outcomes of these activities were consolidated into a Gazetteer Service implementation specification published as an OGC Best Practice (05-035r2). This document defines a Gazetteer Service profile of the OGC Web Feature Service Specification. The OGC Gazetteer Service allows a client to search and retrieve elements of a georeferenced vocabulary of well-known place-names.

Advantages of WFS-G include -

• Easy access to well-known place-name vocabularies
• Promotes real-time access and maintenance of Geonames
• Facilitates data currency of Geonames within WFS
• Enables collaborative maintenance of Geonames using transactions and geosynchronization

• Supports ISO 19112 information models
• Supports development of a variety of location-based applications

With growing global interest in sharing geographic names - and with the recognition that one of the best ways to maintain this resource is locally, closest to the people that know it - WFS-Gs like those coming online now are a key collaborative technology for representing places, groups of people and cultures.

- Jeff and Peter

OpenNode2 integrates Exchange Network Discovery Service (ENDS)

Just three months after the release of OpenNode2 comes an upgraded version - with some major new features like Exchange Network Discovery Service (ENDS) integration.

OpenNode2 is now capable of automatically registering an agency's Exchange Network (EN)presence and capabilities with the recently released national ENDS repository housed at EPA. ENDS is implemented as a set of services complying to the Exchange Network protocols - and the repository lets consumers of Network data discover which agencies have operational Nodes, and what data they are able to exchange via those Nodes.

The ENDS v1.3 exchange defines several Query services to retreive these lists of Nodes and services:

GetDataServices - returns ENDS_DataServices
GetSchemaList - returns ENDS_NetworkSchemaList
GetRequestList - returns ENDS_RequestList
GetStyleSheetList - returns ENDS_NetworkStyleSheetList
GetParametersList - returns ENDS_ParameterList
GetExampleList - returns ENDS_NodeExampleList

The six common data service payloads can be used to update data within the exchange just as they are used to consume data about the exchange. ENDS version 2.0 updated this approach to address issues raised by the EN community and align with OpenNode2.

With the release of OpenNode2 the Exchange Network has been gaining momentum - and the ENDS repository may become an essential tool to ensure that the community is aware of the Network's ongoing expansion.

- Jeff
(NSDI + NEIEN) x GeoWeb = NSDI 2.0

One Small Step...

New CarbonTools PRO Adds OGC WMTS, OpenStreetMap, Digitizing Tools

The Carbon Project announces the latest update to CarbonTools PRO. The release includes support to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) proposed standard for tile-based web mapping (WMTS) as well as the OpenStreetMap (OSM) tile service - providing free and open alternatives to services like Google Maps. In addition, the release adds new functionality to the powerful MultiMap control allowing developers to easily create and edit geometries directly on their mash-ups.

This latest release lets developers add a new generation of ‘SDI 2.0’ content interoperability to their .NET applications – like REST WMTS and OSM. Of course, they can still use all the other sources accessible by CarbonTools PRO like Bing Maps, Yahoo! Maps, KML, KMZ, GML, GMLsf, WMS, WFS, WCS, Filter Encoding, Catalog, OSGeo, ESRI Shapefiles, MapInfo, Autodesk and more.

The release also includes source code for key assemblies and full source code for the up-and-coming Gaia 3.4 geospatial viewer, making it possible for developers to create and deploy interoperable .NET applications in minutes. The Gaia 3.4 geospatial viewer application will be available later this summer at www.TheCarbonProject.com/gaia.php.

CarbonTools PRO is available under a per developer license that has no limits, royalties, restrictions or fees on deploying applications - ever.

For more information please visit http://www.carbontools.com/.

- Jeff

Gaia 3 downloads exceeding 1,000 copies a month

Gaia 3 accessing Framework WFS, Prototype WFS-G, and EPA WFS

Gaia 3 is becoming more popular by the month. Downloads from Carbon Project sites is well above 1,000 copies of the software per month.

Free Extenders and documentation are available on The Carbon Portal. A video tutorial is available on YouTube.

Gaia development was sponsored by the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Cooperative Agreements Program (CAP).

- Jeff