Haiti SDI - WMS reveal a city of tents and need

(Updated Jan 27) In recent days multiple OGC Web Map Service (WMS) services have come online with high-resolution imagery from DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, Google, NOAA and other providers. A quick survey and annotation of these sources reveals Port au Prince dotted with tent cities - with some people some even writing "SOS" on rooftops in hopes of catching the attention of a passing satellite to direct relief their way (above).

Overlaying multiple WMS imagery layers from many dates - along with the cascaded OpenStreetMap (OSM) info - can reveal the location and growth of these tent cities quickly. You can get an idea of the scope of the problem with Gaia and this preview of tent cities near the French consulate - just hit the "refresh all layers" at the top of the map display to access the rest of the WMS. You can also use Bing maps to preview areas, and add your own WMS image annotations to the VGI WFS with Gaia WFS-T if you would like to contribute.

Haiti SDI Background

Volunteers from CubeWerx and The Carbon Project have announced that free mapping data from OpenStreetMap (OSM), the United Nations and other sources have been organized into an open information network for the nation of Haiti. The Haiti Spatial Data Infrastructure (Haiti SDI) is a public resource that may be updated by anyone and used in Google Earth, OpenStreetMap editors, the free Gaia SDI Platform and other applications to support relief and rebuilding.

Gaia users may click here to preview Haiti SDI data services now. This application will stream live data and maps to your desktop - some geographic features will display faster than others depending on internet connection speed. Service URLs are provided below for users on all applications to access Haiti SDI services and Google Earth KMLs will be posted shortly. The Haiti SDI is based on international standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC): the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) and OGC Web Feature Services (WFS) Interface Standards. The Haiti SDI provides four service capabilities:

Cascading WMS – A unique service that provides a single access point for applications like Google Earth, Gaia SDI Platform and OSM editors that implement WMS. The service works by aggregating WMS deployed in the last few days into one easy-to-use resource - including New York Public Library, University of Cincinnati, CubeWerx framework WMS, GeoEye and DigitalGlobe imagery, government data and more.

OSM WFS – A data service that refreshes from OpenStreetMap (Geofabrik) sources every hour and deploys the data as OGC WFS so any application may instantly connect to the most up-to-date information from the OSM community. Includes the Dominican Republic.

UN WFS – A data service that provides United Nations framework data through an open interface that implements the WFS standard. United Nations framework data includes Boundaries, Hydrography, Transportation, Locations, and Population information.

VGI WFS – A Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) service that enables anyone to add GML points, lines or polygon WMS annotations using WFS-T, contributing their own Haiti framework data and information about tent cities, emergency operations, locations, and points of interest data. This service employs OGC standards based tools such as the Gaia WFS-T Extender.

All OpenStreetMap, United Nations and Volunteered Geographic Information for Haiti SDI are freely available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. Haiti SDI services are being posted on http://www.crisiscommons.org/ as often as possible. The Haiti SDI services are evolving rapidly and updates are being posted here and www.Twitter.com/JeffHarrison. Please contact info@thecarbonproject.com if there are specific information needs.

CubeWerx and The Carbon Project Contribute Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for Haiti

(Updated Jan 25) Today volunteers from CubeWerx and The Carbon Project announced that free mapping data from OpenStreetMap (OSM), the United Nations and other sources have been organized into an open information network for the nation of Haiti. The Haiti Spatial Data Infrastructure (Haiti SDI) is a public resource that may be updated by anyone and used in Google Earth, OpenStreetMap editors, the free Gaia SDI Platform and other applications to support relief and rebuilding.

Gaia users may click here to preview Haiti SDI data services now. This application will stream live data and maps to your desktop - some geographic features will display faster than others depending on internet connection speed. Service URLs are provided below for users on all applications to access Haiti SDI services and Google Earth KMLs will be posted shortly.

The Haiti SDI is based on international standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC): the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) and OGC Web Feature Services (WFS) Interface Standards. The Haiti SDI provides four capabilities:

Haiti SDI Cascading WMS – A unique service that provides a single access point for applications like Google Earth, Gaia SDI Platform and OSM editors that implement WMS. The service works by aggregating WMS deployed in the last few days into one easy-to-use resource - including New York Public Library, University of Cincinnati, CubeWerx framework WMS, GeoEye and DigitalGlobe imagery, government data and more.

Haiti SDI OSM WFS – A data service that refreshes from OpenStreetMap (Geofabrik) sources every hour and deploys the data as OGC WFS so any application may instantly connect to the most up-to-date information from the OSM community.
Haiti SDI UN WFS – A data service that provides United Nations framework data through an open interface that implements the WFS standard. United Nations framework data includes Boundaries, Hydrography, Transportation, Locations, and Population information.
Haiti SDI VGI WFS – A Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) service that enables anyone to add GML points, lines or polygon WMS annotations, contributing their own Haiti framework data and information about tent cities, emergency operations, locations, and points of interest data. This service employs OGC standards based tools such as the Gaia WFS-T Extender.

“We hope the Haiti SDI will help the people of Haiti and everyone working to assist them," said Jeff Harrison, coordinator for the Haiti SDI project. “We are planning coordination sessions in the coming days and working to make sure this resource is openly available to as many people as possible.”

All OpenStreetMap, United Nations and Volunteered Geographic Information for Haiti SDI are freely available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. Haiti SDI services are being posted on http://www.crisiscommons.org/ as often as possible.

The Haiti SDI services are evolving rapidly and updates are being posted here and www.Twitter.com/JeffHarrison. Please contact info@thecarbonproject.com if there are specific information needs.

NOTICE - Haiti SDI Cascading WMS, OSM WFS, UN WFS, VGI WFS were given dedicated servers at 1PM ET Jan 22. Old URLs for all Haiti SDI WMS & WFS will be maintained until 6PM ET Jan 25. Please update your applications as needed and use the new URLs.

Haiti cascading WMS deployed - single WMS access point for Google Earth, OSM, Gaia

(Updated April 2010) CubeWerx and The Carbon Project have deployed a Cascading Web Map Service (WMS) as part of the growing open information network for the nation of Haiti. The service is being posted on CrisisCommons.org and may be accessed now in Google Earth (Image overlay), Gaia, OpenStreetMap (OSM) editors and other applications with this WMS service link-

http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WMS&request=GetCapabilities

The Haiti SDI Cascading WMS is offered by CubeWerx as a free public resource to help support relief, rebuilding, communications and data update operations. The practical benefit is to provide a simple, single access point (above) for applications like Gaia, Google Earth and OpenStreetMap editors by “cascading” online WMS. WMS are currently being cascaded from New York Public Library, University of Cincinnati, Calit2, Haiti.opensgi.net, CubeWerx and others, as well as imagery from GeoEye and DigitalGlobe on a variety of WMS - and any organization is invited to contribute WMS URLs to support Haiti relief. The Haiti SDI Cascading WMS can combined with the Haiti OSM WFS and UN WFS to get a clear picture of the environment using applications like Gaia at the following URLs -

Haiti SDI OSM WFS

http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WFS&DATASTORE=OSM&request=GetCapabilities

Haiti SDI UN WFS

http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WFS&DATASTORE=MINUSTAH&request=GetCapabilities

The technical benefits of a cascading WMS are -

1. It can connect to all official WMS versions and most unofficial ones - so your application doesn't have to know all the different protocols. For example, if your client supports WMS 1.1.1 and you use a cascading WMS you can connect to 1.0.0, 1.1.0, 1.3.0-only servers.

2. The cascading WMS supports many image formats and will convert the data to your desired format. So if an OSM client wants the image in PNG using a cascading WMS you can connect to servers that only serve either GIF, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, etc.

3. The cascading WMS supports a large number of coordinate systems and will convert the data to your desired coordinate system. Your client wants the image in Geographic and using a cascading WMS you can connect to servers that serve only UTM, Mercator, etc.

4. The cascading WMS supports loop detection. When retrieving the capabilities of all the remote WMSs it will not go into an endless loop. Server A can cascade Server B and Server B can cascade Server C and Server C can cascade Server A. Your client can connect to any of these servers and get an aggregated capabilities of all the servers.

Interesting to note that CubeWerx's CubeSERV is the only cascading WMS - that implements all the functions above (as far as I'm aware). The Haiti Spatial Data Infrastructure (Haiti SDI) is a public resource that may be used in Google Earth, OpenStreetMap, the Gaia SDI Platform and other applications to support relief, rebuilding, communications and mapping data production. The Haiti SDI is based on international standards for Web Mapping Services (WMS) and Web Feature Services (WFS) from OGC, and any organization is invited to contribute.

The Haiti SDI services are evolving rapidly and updates are being posted on The Carbon Project’s blog at http://carboncloud.blogspot.com/. Please contact jharrison@thecarbonproject.com for more information.

Accessing OpenStreetMap as WFS over Haiti and Dominican Republic

(updated Jan 27) Volunteers from CubeWerx and The Carbon Project have deployed OpenStreetMap (OSM) data into Web Feature Services (WFS) as part of an open information network for Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The service is being posted on CrisisCommons.org and may be accessed using Gaia and other tools at -

http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WFS&DATASTORE=OSM&request=GetCapabilities

Gaia users may click here to preview Haiti SDI OSM WFS now. To access the service users on all WFS applications just need to add the link above. The OSM WFS is offered by CubeWerx as a free public resource to help support relief, rebuilding, communications and data update operations. The OSM WFS server collects OpenStreetMap Roads, Places, Points of Interest, Buildings, Waterways, and Railways hourly and deploys them as WFS.

The Haiti and Dominican Republic OSM WFS can be combined with the Haiti SDI Cascading WMS, the UN WFS and the VGI WFS-T for WMS annotations at the following URLs:

Cascading WMS -
http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WMS&request=GetCapabilities

UN WFS -
http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WFS&DATASTORE=MINUSTAH&request=GetCapabilities

VGI WFS-T -

http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti_vgi&DATASTORE=vgi&service=WFS&request=GetCapabilities

Using the Cascading WMS above with a variety of imagery sources (GeoEye, Bing) may reveal some location offset with the OSM WFS data. The OSM WFS data matches DigitalGlobe WMS.

The Haiti Spatial Data Infrastructure (Haiti SDI) is a free public resource that may be used in Google Earth, OpenStreetMap, Gaia and other applications to support relief, rebuilding, communications and mapping data production. Haiti SDI is based on international standards for Web Mapping Services (WMS) and Web Feature Services (WFS) from ISO/OGC, and any organization is invited to contribute.

If anyone has any questions please contact info@thecarbonproject.com

UN and Geonames WFS for Haiti Deployed

On Friday, January 15 The Carbon Project and CubeWerx received FTP links to a GIS data dump from the United Nations MINUSTAH (mission to Haiti) - the data came out in ESRI format. We had to convert it, and sort through the files - and after some review it was apparent the UN had released raw data on Boundaries, Hydrography, Transportation, Locations, and Population for the whole country. A great move by the UN since we were really struggling to find decent data sources.

To make this important information more accessible volunteers from CubeWerx and The Carbon Project have deployed the UN data into Web Feature Services (WFS) as part of an open information network for Haiti. The service is based on international standards from OGC and will be posted on CrisisCommons.org. The "UN WFS" may be accessed using Gaia and other WFS tools at -

http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti&SERVICE=WFS&DATASTORE=MINUSTAH&request=GetCapabilities

The Haiti SDI UN WFS is offered by CubeWerx as a free public resource to help support relief, rebuilding, communications and data update operations. The service deploys instantly accessible information layers (real data) like Boundaries, Hydrography, Transportation, Locations, and Population for the whole country.

[Information on the Geonames WFS coming soon]

For more information on the services contact info@thecarbonproject.com

Haiti SDI Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) WFS-T

(updated Jan 26, 2010) CubeWerx and The Carbon Project have established an online service to collect and distribute WMS image annotations and features over Haiti. The Haiti VGI (Volunteered Geographic Information) service, data model and tools are based on international standards, and can be updated by anyone. The companies are working with Crisis Commons, Crisis Mappers Google groups and others to coordinate the services. Anyone may contribute updates with free Gaia WFS-T tools or any WFS-T client. Some updates include:

Tent Cities (GSF - remove some WMS imagery layers for faster navigation if needed)

Champs de Mars area Shelters (GSF)

Staging Areas at Port au Prince airport (GSF)

The service is designed as rapid collection point for Haiti WMS imagery annotations, emergency operations, framework data updates etc. In addition to framework data, the service includes three layers that follow a very simple WMS image annotation model of - Point, Line and Area Annotations - and let you quickly add annotations to WMS imagery with DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, Google imagery.

To get started and contribute data such as tent city locations using these layers, install Gaia with WSF-T Extender, (or use your own WFS-T client) and add the following service -

http://portal.cubewerx.com/cubewerx/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?CONFIG=haiti_vgi&DATASTORE=vgi&service=WFS&request=GetCapabilities

Read the Capabilities description, then select and add Haiti Point Annotations to your layer list. Then select the "Config" button at the bottom of Gaia and read the schema - you are now ready to add WMS image annotations from DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, Google WMS. Note, users may wish to review the Gaia WFS-T User Guide for more details and add other Haiti SDI services as well - especially the Cascading WMS. The Cascading WMS will show you the locations of OpenStreetMap roads, buildings, points of interest and locations being added by the OSM community.

The VGI WFS-T service and data use international standards for Web Feature Services (WFS-T) and Geography Markup Language (GML) from OGC. Pretty much anything can be added to the service as needed. A WMS of the data is also being made available to distribute the updates.

Online services from DigitalGlobe, OpenStreetMap, GeoEye, Microsoft Bing Maps, Yahoo! Maps, any Web Map Service (WMS) or WFS can be used with the VGI WFS.

For information contact info@thecarbonproject.com.

SDI Contributions from Anyone - Free Gaia WFS-T Evaluation Released

The Carbon Project is pleased to announce a free evaluation of the data production tool for our Gaia Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) platform. The new "WFS-T Extender" provides an easy way for anyone to contribute geospatial data using Web Feature Service Transactional (WFS-T) services from any system - including ESRI ArcGIS Server, CubeWerx, Geoserver, Intergraph, ERDAS and others. You can try the free evaluation now (the free WFS-T Extender eval is in the download package). Also, a free Users Guide for the Gaia WFS-T Extender is available.

Why is the Gaia WFS-T Extender important? If you look at the geospatial community a key emerging area are open geospatial services like ArcGIS Server 9.3 that break down stovepipes and offer a new angle on data production. What's the angle? ArcGIS Server and other products implement OGC WFS Transactions (WFS-T) - a standard way for users to pull in geospatial information and then contribute content for use by others. I should mention that WFS-T tools like The Carbon Project’s CarbonArc PRO (an ESRI ArcGIS desktop extension) have been around for years. But face it, ArcGIS desktop may not be easy for a "non-GIS" user. So to make it easy for anyone, anywhere to contribute to the geospatial community a user-friendly app was needed to work with ArcGIS Server 9.3. To do this and also support users who can’t rely on stable network connections (like in the field), a standalone app also seemed reasonable. Enter the WFS-Transactions Extender for the Gaia SDI platform.

The Gaia WFS-T Extender allows geospatial edits and updates using WFS-T and GML in both online and offline environments - wrapping OGC standards into an easy-to-use application accessible to anyone, including non-GIS users. The app also plugs-and-plays with non-ESRI WFS-T like CubeWerx, Geoserver, Intergraph, ERDAS and ESRI - and we hope it promotes collaborative SDI.

Finally, the Gaia WFS-T Extender is part of CarbonCloud Sync - a Cloud-hosted geosynchronization capability for crowd-sourcing data production over an OGC SDI network. The Carbon Project will present the Gaia WFS-T Extender and CarbonCloud Sync at the ESRI Federal Users Conference in Washington DC, on February 18 - hope to see you there! So go ahead and try the free evaluation (the free WFS-T Extender eval is in the download package). If you have questions you can contact us at info@TheCarbonProject.com.

NASA satellites, WMS reveal arctic grip

For people in North America and Eurasia it’s not news the last month was one of the coldest in decades. The NASA satellite data WMS in Gaia above illustrates just how much colder it's been compared to average temperatures recorded in December between 2000 and 2008. Places that are warmer than average are red, places that were near-normal are white, and places that were cooler than average are blue. According to climate gurus this pattern is a sign of "negative" Arctic Oscillation - where cold Arctic air chilled the land surface at midlatitudes, while Arctic land (Greenland and Alaska), was warmer than usual. Over most of the past century, the Arctic Oscillation alternated between positive and negative phases. Starting in the 1970s, however, the oscillation tended to stay in the positive phase, causing lower than normal arctic air pressure and higher than normal temperatures in much of the US and northern Eurasia. Not quite the Day After Tomorrow - but damn cold nonetheless.

- Jeff

CarbonTools PRO release enhances OGC WCS, ESRI WFS-T editing support

As a "Happy New Year" gift we released CarbonTools PRO Version 3.1.1 on December 31, 2009.

This version has many updates and changes - including better support to some of the more modern OGC services like WCS 1.1.x, new features to work with ArcGIS Server WFS-T and WFS 1.1, improved handling of GML 3 and full source code of Gaia 3.4.1.

Some of the highlights from the CarbonTools PRO Version 3.1.1 release include:

• Capabilities parser now supports WCS 1.1.x
• WCS.QueryBuilder now supports WCS version 1.1.x
• HandlerWCS supports WCS version 1.1.x
• DataFeatures.LockId property added and contains a parsed lockId attribute from GML
• Added MultiMap.GeometryEditGetMarkerPoints and MultiMap.GeometryEditUpdateMarkerPoints for more feature editing extendibility.
• Parse3_2.Parse(string, bool) adds parsing based on GML as text
• GML 3 and GML 3.2 parsers now read the LockId from the returned FeatureCollection tag
• WFS.QueryBuilder.BuildGetFeatureWithLock method now uses the GetFeatureWithLock element in the query
• WFS.TransactionBuilder supports 'LockId' parameter
• HandlerWFS : GetPersistentFeatures, AddPersistentFeatures, AddRangePersistentFeatures, RemovePersistentFeatures, ClearPersistentFeatures
• CarbonTools.Content.OGC.GML.Parse3_2.ParseGeometry() parses a GML geometry
• The full source code of Gaia 3.4.1

All assemblies are available for Mono users on Linux and Mac OS.

Read the complete release notes here. Hopefully, we'll get the formal announcement out later this week. Happy geospatial programming in 2010!

- Jeff

DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 Reaches Full Operational Capability

DigitalGlobe, announced today that its latest high-resolution satellite, WorldView-2, has achieved full operational capability. Imagery from the satellite is now available to global resellers, partners, and customers.

Blasting into orbit on October 8, 2009, WorldView-2 joins DigitalGlobe's existing sub-meter satellites, QuickBird and WorldView-1, in a three satellite constellation. WorldView-2 significantly expands the constellation's collection capacity, enabling an annual imaging capacity equivalent to three times the area of earth's land mass, and allows for intraday revisit, providing customers with the most timely, relevant imagery available in the commercial market. WorldView-2 is also the industry's first commercial high-resolution satellite to offer eight multispectral bands. This capability will enable higher levels of feature identification and extraction and more accurately reflect the world’s natural color - with potential for many applications, including environmental monitoring, change detection, and defense and intelligence.

"Along with the four typical multispectral bands: Blue (450-510), Green (510-580), Red (630-690) and NearIR (770-895), WorldView-2 introduces the following new color bands for enhanced multispectral analysis:

Coastal Band (400 - 450 nm) This band supports vegetation identification and analysis, and supports bathymetric studies based upon its chlorophyll and water penetration characteristics. Also, this band is subject to atmospheric scattering and will be used to investigate atmospheric correction techniques.

Yellow Band (585 - 625 nm) Used to identify "yellow-ness" characteristics of targets, important for vegetation applications. Also, this band will assist in the development of "true-color" hue correction for human vision representation.

Red Edge Band (705 - 745 nm) Aids in the analysis of vegetative condition. Directly related to plant health revealed through chlorophyll production.

Near Infrared 2 Band (860 - 1040 nm) This band overlaps the NIR 1 band but is less affected by atmospheric influence. It supports vegetation analysis and biomass studies"

Sources: DigitalGlobe