111 research outputs found

    The Analysis of Open Source Software and Data for Establishment of GIS Services Throughout the Network in a Mapping Organization at National or International Level

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    Federal agencies and their partners collect and manage large amounts of geospatial data but it is often not easily found when needed, and sometimes data is collected or purchased multiple times. In short, the best government data is not always organized and managed efficiently to support decision making in a timely and cost effective manner. National mapping agencies, various Departments responsible for collection of different types of Geospatial data and their authorities cannot, for very long, continue to operate, as they did a few years ago like people living in an island. Leaders need to look at what is now possible that was not possible before, considering capabilities such as cloud computing, crowd sourced data collection, available Open source remotely sensed data and multi source information vital in decision-making as well as new Web-accessible services that provide, sometimes at no cost. Many of these services previously could be obtained only from local GIS experts. These authorities need to consider the available solution and gather information about new capabilities, reconsider agency missions and goals, review and revise policies, make budget and human resource for decisions, and evaluate new products, cloud services, and cloud service providers. To do so, we need, choosing the right tools to rich the above-mentioned goals. As we know, Data collection is the most cost effective part of the mapping and establishment of a Geographic Information system. However, it is not only because of the cost for the data collection task but also because of the damages caused by the delay and the time that takes to provide the user with proper information necessary for making decision from the field up to the user’s hand. In fact, the time consumption of a project for data collection, processing, and presentation of geospatial information has more effect on the cost of a bigger project such as disaster management, construction, city planning, environment, etc. Of course, with such a pre-assumption that we provide all the necessary information from the existing sources directed to user’s computer. The best description for a good GIS project optimization or improvement is finding a methodology to reduce the time and cost, and increase data and service quality (meaning; Accuracy, updateness, completeness, consistency, suitability, information content, integrity, integration capability, and fitness for use as well as user’s specific needs and conditions that must be addressed with a special attention). Every one of the above-mentioned issues must be addressed individually and at the same time, the whole solution must be provided in a global manner considering all the criteria. In this thesis at first, we will discuss about the problem we are facing and what is needed to be done as establishment of National Spatial Data Infra-Structure (NSDI), the definition and related components. Then after, we will be looking for available Open Source Software solutions to cover the whole process to manage; Data collection, Data base management system, data processing and finally data services and presentation. The first distinction among Software is whether they are, Open source and free or commercial and proprietary. It is important to note that in order to make distinction among softwares it is necessary to define a clear specification for this categorization. It is somehow very difficult to distinguish what software belongs to which class from legal point of view and therefore, makes it necessary to clarify what is meant by various terms. With reference to this concept there are 2 global distinctions then, inside each group, we distinguish another classification regarding their functionalities and applications they are made for in GIScience. According to the outcome of the second chapter, which is the technical process for selection of suitable and reliable software according to the characteristics of the users need and required components, we will come to next chapter. In chapter 3, we elaborate in to the details of the GeoNode software as our best candidate tools to take responsibilities of those issues stated before. In Chapter 4, we will discuss the existing Open Source Data globally available with the predefined data quality criteria (Such as theme, data content, scale, licensing, and coverage) according to the metadata statement inside the datasets by mean of bibliographic review, technical documentation and web search engines. We will discuss in chapter 5 further data quality concepts and consequently define sets of protocol for evaluation of all datasets according to the tasks that a mapping organization in general, needed to be responsible to the probable users in different disciplines such as; Reconnaissance, City Planning, Topographic mapping, Transportation, Environment control, disaster management and etc… In Chapter 6, all the data quality assessment and protocols will be implemented into the pre-filtered, proposed datasets. In the final scores and ranking result, each datasets will have a value corresponding to their quality according to the sets of rules that are defined in previous chapter. In last steps, there will be a vector of weight that is derived from the questions that has to be answered by user with reference to the project in hand in order to finalize the most appropriate selection of Free and Open Source Data. This Data quality preference has to be defined by identifying a set of weight vector, and then they have to be applied to the quality matrix in order to get a final quality scores and ranking. At the end of this chapter there will be a section presenting data sets utilization in various projects such as “ Early Impact Analysis” as well as “Extreme Rainfall Detection System (ERDS)- version 2” performed by ITHACA. Finally, in conclusion, the important criteria, as well as future trend in GIS software are discussed and at the end recommendations will be presented

    From data collection to analysis: Designing a relational database for archaeological research in the eastern Rhodope region

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    This paper aims to demonstrate the potential of relational databases for archaeological purposes in storing, organizing, managing, querying, and analysis of various types of data. This results in exploration of the long-term settlement history of a regional landscape. The organization and analysis of spatial and non-spatial archaeological datasets pose significant challenges for archaeologists, particularly when it comes to integrating data from multiple sources, representing spatial relationships among data elements, and accommodating multiple scales of analysis. In recent years, advances in database technologies have enabled archaeologists to organize these datasets more effectively through the application of relational databases. This study focuses on the design of a relational database for the eastern Rhodope region in Bulgaria, with the further goal of investigating settlement patterns through the identification, mapping, and analysis of archaeological sites and their spatial relationships. The aim of this research is to explore how archaeologists can enhance their analysis of complex datasets by adopting relational database design, which enables effective organization and integration of data from various sources

    Proceedings of the 3rd Open Source Geospatial Research & Education Symposium OGRS 2014

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    The third Open Source Geospatial Research & Education Symposium (OGRS) was held in Helsinki, Finland, on 10 to 13 June 2014. The symposium was hosted and organized by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Aalto University School of Engineering, in partnership with the OGRS Community, on the Espoo campus of Aalto University. These proceedings contain the 20 papers presented at the symposium. OGRS is a meeting dedicated to exchanging ideas in and results from the development and use of open source geospatial software in both research and education.  The symposium offers several opportunities for discussing, learning, and presenting results, principles, methods and practices while supporting a primary theme: how to carry out research and educate academic students using, contributing to, and launching open source geospatial initiatives. Participating in open source initiatives can potentially boost innovation as a value creating process requiring joint collaborations between academia, foundations, associations, developer communities and industry. Additionally, open source software can improve the efficiency and impact of university education by introducing open and freely usable tools and research results to students, and encouraging them to get involved in projects. This may eventually lead to new community projects and businesses. The symposium contributes to the validation of the open source model in research and education in geoinformatics

    Developing Android Mobile Map Application with standard navigation tools for pedestrians

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    Advanced features of modern mobile devices have made it possible to develop and use maps and map based applications for navigation purposes. Since most mobile map applications nowadays are developed for motor vehicles, there is a demand for portable pedestrian navigation applications. In this thesis the Android mobile map application with standard navigation tools for pedestrian navigation was developed, as a platform for facilitating the Lund Challenge location based demonstrator of the HaptiMap project. The pivotal aim of the Lund Challenge demonstrator is to make the sights of Lund city more accessible. The mobile phone application is being designed as a touristic, historical location based game which will also assist tourists to navigate themselves in the city. To enable exploration of historical and current sites of Lund the demonstrator should contain basic components of exploring and way finding. Prior to the development the OpenStreetMap (OSM) road network data and Swedish National Road Database (NVDB) were introduced. The main advantage of using the OSM data over the NVDB dataset is the completeness of the OSM data in terms of pedestrian paths. The datasets were imported to PostgreSQL spatially extended PostGIS database, where different routing algorithms provided by pgRouting were used for routing calculations. As the Lund Challenge demonstrator is intended not only for general users but also for visually impaired users, the problem of user navigation in the parks and open areas were also discussed and the feasibility study was performed. The limitation of the developed application was the problem of the user navigation in the parks and open areas. It is therefore necessary to upgrade the road database with possible path in the open areas and parks in order to implement this application.Advanced features of modern devices have made it possible to develop and use maps and map-based applications for navigation purposes. Since most mobile map applications are currently developed for motor vehicles, there is a demand for portable pedestrian navigation applications. In this thesis, a mobile map application was developed with standard navigation tools for pedestrians, which can be used with mobile phones running Android Operating System. The application will be used as a platform for facilitating the Lund Challenge location based demonstrator. Lund Challenge location based demonstrator is designed to make historical and actual maps of Lund more accessible and is a part of the HaptiMap project. This project aims to create maps and develop location-based services for all users, including elderly and visually impaired. The goal of the Lund Challenge location based demonstrator (also known as The Lund Time Machine) is to minimize the efforts of pedestrians, especially tourists, with finding interesting sites around the city. Initially, it is being designed as a historical location based game which will assist tourists to navigate themselves around the city. In order to further explore historical and current sites, the Lund Challenge should be enhanced with the basic features of exploration and navigation included in this thesis. The road network data was chosen from two available sources: 1) data from OpenStreetMap (OSM) project which provides free geographic data, and 2) The Swedish National Road Database (NVDB) authorized by the Swedish government, which includes all Swedish road network and selected cycle paths. For this thesis, analysis was performed on the datasets using different shortest path algorithms for routing calculations. A primary advantage of using OSM over NVDB is the completeness of data relating to pedestrian paths. As a result, the determination was made that the OSM option was more appropriate for the purpose of this thesis. Since the Lund Challenge location based demonstrator is intended for both general and visually impaired users, the problem of user navigation in parks and open areas was also discussed and a feasibility study was performed. This study revealed a limitation in the application with user navigation in parks and open areas. To resolve this, it is necessary to upgrade the road network with all possible pedestrian paths for parks and open areas

    Smart Environmental Data Infrastructures: Bridging the Gap between Earth Sciences and Citizens

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    The monitoring and forecasting of environmental conditions is a task to which much effort and resources are devoted by the scientific community and relevant authorities. Representative examples arise in meteorology, oceanography, and environmental engineering. As a consequence, high volumes of data are generated, which include data generated by earth observation systems and different kinds of models. Specific data models, formats, vocabularies and data access infrastructures have been developed and are currently being used by the scientific community. Due to this, discovering, accessing and analyzing environmental datasets requires very specific skills, which is an important barrier for their reuse in many other application domains. This paper reviews earth science data representation and access standards and technologies, and identifies the main challenges to overcome in order to enable their integration in semantic open data infrastructures. This would allow non-scientific information technology practitioners to devise new end-user solutions for citizen problems in new application domainsThis research was co-funded by (i) the TRAFAIR project (2017-EU-IA-0167), co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union, (ii) the RADAR-ON-RAIA project (0461_RADAR_ON_RAIA_1_E) co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Iterreg V-A Spain-Portugal program (POCTEP) 2014-2020, and (iii) the Consellería de Educación, Universidade e Formación Profesional of the regional government of Galicia (Spain), through the support for research groups with growth potential (ED431B 2018/28)S

    Array-database Model (SciDB) for Standardized Storing of Hyperspectral Satellite Images

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    Treball Final del Màster Universitari Erasmus Mundus en Tecnologia Geoespacial (Pla de 2013). Codi: SIW013. Curs acadèmic 2015-2016Hyperspectral Imaging is a technique that collects information from the electromagnetic spectrum, storing the value of the spectrum band for each pixel of the image. This technique stands out for the contiguous wide range of wavelengths it covers; leading to the ability of accurate surface and material distinction. The big volumes of Hyperspectral Images datasets, which are called data cubes as the band value represent the third dimension, have been a barrier against exploiting the full potential of these images where there is no standardized way in storing them. On top of that, the classical relational databases proved to be an inconvenient storage space for such images. Array databases have been a serious choice for storing scientific and big volumes of data, and they represent a promising suitable environment for hyperspectral images. We aim to study the efficiency of storing hyperspectral images on an arraydatabase by suggesting a convenient data model. Furthermore, in order to examine the feasibility of this model, we make a comparison with two relational databases using specific measurements in performance and query complexit

    WEB-BASED SPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEM TO SUPPORT COLLABORATIVE LAHARS DISASTER MANAGEMENT

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    After the 2010 eruption of Merapi, some areas at Sleman Regency experienced with laharsdisaster. Many agencies have their own responsibility to overcome the problems incollaborative work. Nevertheless, it is lack of spatial/GIS data support on their decisionmaking as well as on their communications. The main objective of this research was todevelop spatial information system to support collaborative lahars disaster managementespecially for response and recovery phase of the impact on infrastructures at SlemanRegency. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to investigate their needof the spatial data and the data availability. Basically respondents agreed that spatial datais important in their communication and decision making support. Specifically, theapplication is utilized with specific spatial analysis tools to support decision makingprocesses. The users’ evaluation of the prototype resulted that almost all of respondents givea good mark to the system

    constructing inspire compliant ontologies for geospatial data

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    Ο στόχος αυτής της πτυχιακής είναι η ανάπτυξη οντολογιών για γεωχωρικά δεδομένα συμβατών με το INSPIRE, που ανήκουν στις εξής κατηγορίες του: Ελληνική Διοικητική Γεωγραφία, Δημόσιες Συγκοινωνίες, Δημόσια Κτήρια, Χρήση Γης. Το πρώτο ζήτημα, ήταν να σχεδιαστούν τέσσερις οντολογίες που περιέχουν όλες τις απαραίτητες πληροφορίες για την αναπαράσταση των δεδομένων του κάθε θέματος. Το επόμενο βήμα, ήταν να μελετηθεί κάθε υπάρχουσα οντολογία, να εισαχθεί στην αντίστοιχη του INSPIRE και να γίνουν αλλαγές και επεκτάσεις οπουδήποτε αυτό χρειαζόταν. Έπειτα από αυτή τη διαδικασία, χρησιμοποιήθηκε το εργαλείο Geotriples για τη μετατροπή των δεδομένων των shapefile σε μορφή RDF, ξανά αξιοποιώντας κάθε οντολογία. Τέλος, με σκοπό να παρουσιαστούν τα αποτελέσματα τα τέσσερα dataset αποθηκεύτηκαν στο Strabon, στον οποίο έγιναν ενδεικτικές επερωτήσεις.The objective of this thesis is to develop INSPIRE compliant ontologies for datasets that belong to the following INSPIRE themes: Greek Administrative Geography, Public Trans- port, Public Buildings and Land Use. The first task was to construct four ontologies that contain all information needed to represent data related to each of the themes. The next step was to study each existing ontology, import it to its INSPIRE equivalent and proceed to making changes or expansions wherever it was necessary. Following that process, the Geotriples tool was used to convert the shapefile data to RDF form, again using each ontology. Finally, in order to demonstrate the results the four datasets have been stored in the spatiotemporal RDF store Strabon, and indicative queries where performed against each dataset
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