Re-inventing Spatial Data Management intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets FOSS4G – September, 2006 Raj R. Singh, PhD Research Scientist, MIT Interoperability Program Director, OGC This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License

Problem Statement Why is it so expensive to manage spatial data? Why should one know GIS to use spatial data? Organizations do information management, not GIS Spatial information is “touched” by many different kinds of professionals Analysis is better done by its consumers--executives intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Audience Well-organized, mature community development groups Those that work with them, such as local and regional governments, academics, large data providers intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

High-level Tasks Identify geospatial data management (GDM) functions Identify the types of users for those functions Build applications that fit into those user’s skill set via Web services interfaces intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

GDM Functions Data gathering Editing, or adding institutional knowledge Mapping Reporting, publishing Sharing knowledge intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Tech Talk All applications use simple REST Web services Postgresql/PostGIS PHP programming by MIT and Traverse Technologies Mapserver for mapping 2 Javascript WMS clients: Mapbuilder & quickWMS intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Data Gathering Data changes, so the gathering strategy must allow for updates without destroying local edits Strategy: make data synchronization with external parties a separate function that can’t break local data sets Future: working with state agency’s WFS service to develop synching intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Editing Different editing environments for different user types GIS application SQL jockey Neighborhood expert Neighborhood resident intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Rule Editor Made for power users Type in any sensible SQL Changes are saved as update rules and applied as needed. They DO NOT change the original data intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Property Editor Changes tied to a primary key editable property selected simple click on map to change a value (with attractive Google Maps-style dialog box) intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Reporting Web service request: http://uis.mit.edu/umi/service/report.php? Request=QueryReport& name=harvard_ownership_allston& tablename=harvard_ownership_allston& studyarea=allston& xsl=http://uis.mit.edu/umi/xl/report.xsl XSL parameter is very important. It lets us transform the XML response into something else. For example we use this to create HTML that MS Excel can read. intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Reporting in Microsoft Excel Web service request in Excel to bring in data Use native Excel charting functions Changing the underlying report and refreshing the Excel request updates everything! intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Mapping Maps created from a report Basic thematic shading control WMS interface interface allows interoperability with Web publishing, inclusion in other mapping programs. intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Mapping - Javascript WMS Client intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group

Sharing Next step is to work on sharing Strategy: take advantage of Rules being well-formed and atomic. Create a set of Web service operations for managing Rules sharing, paying attention to privacy and data set applicability intelligent middleware for understanding neighborhood markets MIT Urban Information Systems Group