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.