Expand the National Map Save As/Open In to USGS Wide
Dates
Award Date
2012
Summary
The USGS provides many national, regional and local datasets for download, streaming interaction such as WFS/WCS, and analysis. Ultimately, most datasets are presented for visualization in "viewers" with basic navigation and interaction for inspection and even lightweight WebGIS like web service functions, annotations, etc. Many viewers–different APIs, clients, purposes, and niche functions–are invested in at USGS and DOI and the whole Federal Government. The solution is not "1 viewer" or "1 viewer API" - see the "Viewer Explosion Conundrum" below. We are stuck in a multiple viewer environment, we could recommend a few APIs, and restrict others at best. The problem with this is that when someone goes to a new viewer, they don't always [...]
Summary
The USGS provides many national, regional and local datasets for download, streaming interaction such as WFS/WCS, and analysis. Ultimately, most datasets are presented for visualization in "viewers" with basic navigation and interaction for inspection and even lightweight WebGIS like web service functions, annotations, etc. Many viewers–different APIs, clients, purposes, and niche functions–are invested in at USGS and DOI and the whole Federal Government. The solution is not "1 viewer" or "1 viewer API" - see the "Viewer Explosion Conundrum" below. We are stuck in a multiple viewer environment, we could recommend a few APIs, and restrict others at best. The problem with this is that when someone goes to a new viewer, they don't always have the same backdrop basemaps, common list of overlays, and most viewers don't have capability to add services into the viewer, except thick clients and The National Map. Essentially there is no way for a user to jump easily between viewers.
In the early 2000s, OGC sponsored the Web Map Context Profile XML standard. The idea was have a standard configuration file with the initial view setup for basemaps, URLs for legends, metadata and web map, which maps were turned on by default, what other overlay WMSs are available in a pick list, what is the default title, order, transparency and grouping. If you made a map, turned layers on/off, changed order, transparency, zoomed, panned, you could then save your new "mashup", as it’s called now as an OGC Context Profile, for later on that site, or if another site supported reading that standard, could just drop it into another viewer. Also, this is not just a viewer reuse, but also analytical processing re-use.
Great concept, but didn't take off. Only Geospatial One-Stop on a large scale produced the file. Since then, all viewers support the user to make their own context like OpenLayers, ESRI JS or Flex API, Google Maps, Bing. And most also are trending towards JSON (Javascript Object Notation) as the context profile language of choice. But most developers are choosing their own context profile standard. This is very typical for developers to do without a standard to refer to.
In 2008, NGA Palanterra x3 went this direction and nicely documented their configuration JSON. USGS The National Map followed suit using that and extending with download framework. ESRI as a corporation came out with a 229-page paper for the REST specification, noting a configuration schema, and was released defaultly with Flex, ESRI JS API, and ArcGIS.com. It is similar to the Px3 implementation, but there are differences. USGS asked OpenGeo Openlayers if they would be up for a JSON context profile standard, and they said they were interested in collaborating as did ESRI ArcGIS / Rest Spec Team.
In 2011, OGC has advanced the context even further by creating map and processing context - more powerful than the original. This is up for standard acceptance in September 2011. Also, USGS Community for Data Integration, which brings together most viewer developers and managers, agreed in FY11 to pilot a context profile sharing concept, and in FY12 agreed to investige adopting a single JSON standard for corporate viewers and evangelizing and sharing code to support project viewers. This also goes for sharing in the analytical processing context for re-use.
Given this momentum, this architecture project is the starting basis for the conversation with a goal of not a complete standard for all parts of the context, but a core part that is used commonly by all.
Principal Investigator : Rob Dollison
Benefits
Cross-Science Data Visualization - Easily move the visualization of USGS Science Data with National Map Data into many popular viewers and applications
Facilitate the development / implementation of a proposed OGC Standard
Deliverables
Presentation given at CDI-hosted Webinar (September 2012)
Save As – NGTOC refactored code to be standalone service for Session Context and Snapshot Printing
OpenIn – NGTOC solved Cross-Site Scripting issues with opening a Context Profile on another Server.
Open In – OpenLayers JSON Context reader is developed. Several enhancement remain
Open in ESRI Flex API - We validated out of box in ESRI Flex viewer once saved as ESRI/OWF Standard JSON
Open In – ArcMap now do-able from ArcGIS 10.1 server with new ArcPy Library
Note: this information is from the FY12 CDI Annual Review
