CSW final report

From MapbenderWiki

Contents 1 Inspiration 2 What I've achieved 2.1 Catalog Service for Web Client 3 What I've learnt 4 Future Improvements & the way forward 5 Future Research Implications 6 Weekly GSoC09 CSW Client Reports 7 Thanks

Inspiration

I'm a Postgraduate student at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. My research topic: "GIS:Heterogenous Data Integration" made me look for relevant GSoC projects, that would have an implication on my research work. I came across MapBender's CSW Client proposal, which would fit in nicely due to its implications in finding relevant data easily - t'was love at first sight ;)

What I've achieved

• I've gotten a good understanding of the Catalog Systems - I read, re-read and referred to the OGC Catalog specification and the OGC Application Profiles specs. Based on my mentors' and project teams advice, I focused on some section more than others in the specs.
• Read the SDI Cookbook - got a brilliant view of the bigger picture and where each component fitted in overall.
• I did detailed research into GeoNetwork and tried out its sample CSW Client implementation - I also looked at how some of these features could be incorporated into MB
• I dived into the MB codebase, written in PHP, using bits of JQuery and JSON, Javascript. I used Postgres/PostGIS as my database backend, altho I should get the MySQL version working as well soon. I looked and learnt by following the flow of the other modules worked, especially the WMS and WFS components
• I familiarised myself with the inner workings and the MB GUI conventions - the GUI in MB is unique, and it was important to understand the various components to know what goes where
• Development of CSW Client: Admin functionalities, Search Components, GUI Components and SQL
• Some practical issues propped up: the way to handle multiple types, for instance - had to handle these via SQL

Catalog Service for Web Client

• The CSW Client is a client application that helps users search the numerous GIS Catalogs out there
• For a portal project like MB, this is an important component, as it allows users to search catalogs from within MB itself
• With future integration, it will be combined with WMS so that the WMS can be loaded from the search results itself
• Overall, the CSW client is an important component in allowing non-GIS users to access various data sources

What I've learnt

• Contributing to newer Open Source projects can only get better - I had fun...
• It is important that the standards are set out prior to designing the system - as was the case with the OGC Catalog specs - way to go
• Sticking to standards can do wonders in the future

Future Improvements & the way forward

• Integrate dev code into the MB
• Integrate to create a common starting point for both WMS and Catalog searches - make it easier for the user
• Become a MB committer???

• Separately, see how this can fit into Sahana Disaster Management System Project

Future Research Implications

• Look into integrating natural language search into CSW client
• Research into browsing catalog items
• much much more ...

Weekly GSoC09 CSW Client Reports

• CSW_report_weekly
• SVN Branch with code

Thanks

• Once again, a successful program by Google - I was one of the happy bunch of people who completed the Google Summer of Code 2009.
• I'm priviledged to have been involved with OSGEO - this is a dream come true combination
• Thanks go to Google for the wonderful program, OSGEO and its GSoC administrators for their wonderful job, Mapbender, Armin and the developer community who helped me out in many a tight knot, My mentor - Christopher Baudson for his continuous support, and my University mentor, Dr. Damith for allowing me to participate in this wonderful program.