With new technologies flooding in every day, it is hard to keep up with the updates. The need for shared data platforms is a valuable resource for keeping up with recent innovations. Since the coronavirus pandemic, we have learned that interactive maps can provide greater awareness and context. Allowing diverse groups to act together directing their efforts to stagnate the spread of the virus globally.
Just as the agriculture and public health sectors have been using shared data platforms and maps, from a geographic information system, for better agricultural outputs and disaster response, the systems supporting these GIS platforms require regular upgrades and updates, which then helps the platform perform across space and time to unlock new knowledge about nature and its ecosystems.
Shared data platforms – Geospatial Perspectives
GIS platforms usually follow a common design pattern; however, existing systems do not regularly share data or infrastructure but build out end-to-end solutions by necessity. The need for shared data platforms is becoming more apparent, and so are their supporting platforms. The most common challenges faced by organizations consuming GIS data are –
- Spatial/temporal granularity
- Schema/domain model differences
- Isolated access
- Lack of documentation
Our project, a geographic information storage platform, provides a central data catalog and data repository of geospatial data for the main shared data platform. This platform uses a governed data request, query retrieval, and publishing process to serve people and projects who use multiple formats of voluminous data sets to make informed decisions.
Conquering the challenge
The spatial and temporal granularity utilized by organizations is one where they gather spatial information of territory in the question of a large span of time, it could be weeks, months, or years. These data sets can be in different formats, can have different resolutions, and are almost always from different sources. The platform needs to be able to ingest these kinds of datasets and cross-reference the metadata and actual data, to allow users to seamlessly access this data.
On encountering the second challenge, a lot of times the domain model is different from the schema that is presented. This is usually to accommodate requests from the user’s end upon A B testing. The platform has the capability to transform the data on the fly and allows users to access only the fields and values that they need.
Departments within an organization are used to isolated access of data keeping in with their requirements. Data repositories are able to centralize this storage of data for ease of access to multiple departments. The Platform has the search and tagging capability to enable data discovery, and allow cross-department usage of data, so work need not be repeated.
For a lot of the changes in query retrieval and report generation, there is a lack of back-end documentation in place, which hinders the tracking of changes to the code. The platform allows users to store data, links to services, code, and repositories in one place and allows users to access them in a holistic manner.
The data access provided to Shared Data Platforms by Geospatial tools
There are currently 3 forms of data access provided by GRIS in the current solution
- WMS – WMS (Web Mapping Service) communicates geographic rendering of GIS data
- Supports raster (PNG, JPG, GIF etc.) and vector (SVG, WebCGM etc.) data
- On-the-fly symbology and labelling
- Supports: Contour lines, heat maps, point clustering, point interpolation
- Produces outputs like PNG, GIF, JPG etc
A few of the sample map tiles rendered by the Web Mapping Service
2. WFS – WFS (Web Feature Service) communicates geographic feature information
- Supports vector data types
- Full Standard filter support – Scalar, Temporal, and Spatial
- Transactional
- Produces GeoJson, GML, and Shapefiles outputs
3. WCS – WCS (Web Coverage Service) communicates geographic area information
- Supports raster and multi-dimensional data types
- For data analysis, not map visualization
- Produces GeoTiff and NetCDF outputs
The way forward
The geographic information storage platform we created allows for common reference datasets, environmental characterization datasets, online catalog, and manual data access and data access via open geospatial consortium (OGC) web services. The road map enables the inclusion of geospatial analytics, and agronomic data which can be expanded to many industries in the future. Defense and industrial applications are also known to consume large volumes of data for easy interpretation. Shared data platforms will be a norm in the future for smooth work-flows and intuitive decision-making.
Today, entirely new kinds of maps and data visualizations are made possible by the instrumentation of natural and human-made systems and the integration of many types of data. These repositories enable radically enhanced usage of data lakes and existing shared data platforms, which lets us understand and optimize issues and entire complex systems. As we’ve seen with the pandemic and as we’re discovering issues like climate change and sustainability, geospatial solutions are critical to our decision-making and problem-solving.
Sharing maps, models, and GIS-based solutions with a decision-support system will empower stakeholders to accelerate action and ensure sustainable impacts. We have the mapping and analysis tools the world needs – and are ready to support our leaders as they take on this grand challenge.
This blog was written with the help of our brilliant Remote Sensing Scientist Aazad Patle, led by Lead Scientist Puneeth Shankar
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