The conference should bring the spirit of global FOSS4G event to our region. This year, it will be connected with traditional Geoinformatics FCE CTU conference, which will cover the academic section of FOSS4G-CEE.

Important dates:

• 1.1.2012 Call for papers & workshops
• 1.2.2012 Workshop submission deadline
• 1.3.2012 Papers submission deadline
• 15.2.2012 Confirmation of accepted workshops
• 15.3.2012 Confirmation of accepted papers
• 1.4.2012 Early bird registration deadline

For more information including the registration and submission of your contribution, please visit the conference website:

http://www.foss4g-cee.org

Take the opportunity of FOSS4G-CEE to network with geospatial fellows, renewing old acquaintances and making new ones. Hope to see you there!

About FOSS4G-CEE & Geoinformatics 2012

FOSS4G-CEE & Geoinformatics 2012 is the first local conference focused on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial in Central and Eastern Europe. This year, it is connected together with traditional Geoinformatics FCE CTU.

The conference is intended to move it’s location over the region every year. It should be similar to the global FOSS4G conference, with focus on local regional issues.

About FOSS4G

FOSS4G is “the global conference” focused on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial, organized by OSGeo. At FOSS4G you can meet all kind of actors: Free Software developers and any kind of representatives from companies, institutions and the academic world.

About Geoinformatics FCE CTU

Geoinformatics FCE CTU is the international conference which is organized by Department of Mapping and Cartography, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague. The conference is focused on the relevance of Free and Open Source Software in Geoinformatics concerning wide range of topics. Geoinformatics FCE CTU is the event with a fruitful history, organized since 2006.
FOSS4G Organizing Committee

RELATED LINKS

• http://foss4g-cee.org/ Foss4G-CEE
• http://geoinformatics.fsv.cvut.cz/ Geoinformatics FCE CTU
• http://foss4g.org/ The Global FOSS4G Conference

As you might know, we are using (and developing) HSLayers for your mapping purposes. It is OpenLayers- and ExtJS-based JavaScript Mapping framework. The support for TIME in WMS arrived just few days ago and can be viewed in WMS Time Supprot in HSLayers video.

We are now facing the other problem. Customers and various project partners do want to display WCS and WFS services inside of the map. It does not make sense to try to convince them, that it does not make any sense – they don’t care. Basically, we have two possibilities there:

1. Try to write parser for WCS/WFS (which is partly done in OpenLayers). And hope to display the data somehow.
2. Translate the services to WMS and use current infrastructure

Even OpenLayers is capable to display WFS data, it is not usable for larger amount of data. Not speaking about WCS, where you can sometimes get just GeoTIFF and that’s all you have.

We decided to write something called OWSProxy. It parses WCS/WFS Capabilities response and builds temporal WMS on top of it. Advantage: we can use all we have got for the current WMS Client. It simply works nicely. I’m facing one issue now.

MapServer is not able to work as WCS client. No big problem -> we use GDAL, which works just great and in the trunk, there is support for temporal information inside WCS as well.

You can access various times using GDAL:

Python 2.7.1+ (r271:86832, Apr 11 2011, 18:13:53)
>>> from osgeo import gdal
>>> ds = gdal.Open("xml.wcs")
>>> ds.GetSubDatasets()[0]
('WCS_SDS:time="2011-06-15T21:00:00.000Z",/tmp/WCS-a7145b1a3d54e8df55f019a136f55f8408LK0Y/20110615T210000_dfm.wcs', 'Coverage 20110615T210000_dfm at time 2011-06-15T21:00:00.000Z')

We have now data source with time, which can be accessed from the command line as well

gdalinfo 'WCS_SDS:time="2011-06-15T21:00:00.000Z",/tmp/WCS-a7145b1a3d54e8df55f019a136f55f8408LK0Y/20110615T210000_dfm.wcs'

Driver: WCS/OGC Web Coverage Service
Files: none associated
Size is 1126, 341
Coordinate System is:
PROJCS["GGRS87 / Greek Grid",
    GEOGCS["GGRS87",
        DATUM["Greek_Geodetic_Reference_System_1987",
            SPHEROID["GRS 1980",6378137,298.257222101,
                AUTHORITY["EPSG","7019"]],
            TOWGS84[-199.87,74.79,246.62,0,0,0,0],
            AUTHORITY["EPSG","6121"]],
        PRIMEM["Greenwich",0,
            AUTHORITY["EPSG","8901"]],
        UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433,
            AUTHORITY["EPSG","9122"]],
        AUTHORITY["EPSG","4121"]],
    UNIT["metre",1,
        AUTHORITY["EPSG","9001"]],
    PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],
    PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],
    PARAMETER["central_meridian",24],
    PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],
    PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],
    PARAMETER["false_northing",0],
    AUTHORITY["EPSG","2100"],
    AXIS["Easting",EAST],
    AXIS["Northing",NORTH]]
Origin = (606368.000000000000000,4790992.000000000000000)
Pixel Size = (64.000000000000000,-64.000000000000000)
Metadata:
  TIME_POSITION=2011-06-15T21:00:00.000Z
Corner Coordinates:
Upper Left  (  606368.000, 4790992.000) ( 25d18'38.23"E, 43d15'51.24"N)
Lower Left  (  606368.000, 4769168.000) ( 25d18'23.13"E, 43d 4' 3.95"N)
Upper Right (  678432.000, 4790992.000) ( 26d11'52.97"E, 43d15' 2.23"N)
Lower Right (  678432.000, 4769168.000) ( 26d11'27.66"E, 43d 3'15.27"N)
Center      (  642400.000, 4780080.000) ( 25d45' 5.75"E, 43d 9'36.26"N)
Band 1 Block=1126x341 Type=Float64, ColorInterp=Undefined
  Overviews: 563x17

NOW, I would like propagate this GDAL interface to MapServer. Should be pretty easy, you just need to create the TileIndex file (ESRI Shapefile), add time attribute the it, insert various times and locations …. ?

Unfortunately, MapServer seems not, that it would be able to access GDAL subdataset files,

 OGRFeature(20110308T220000_tem.wcs.tindex):120
  location (String) = WCS_SDS:time="2011-03-13T22:00:00.000Z",/tmp/WCS-a7145b1a3d54e8df55f019a136f55f84iYEWBn/20110308T220000_tem.wcs
  time (String) = 2011-03-13T22:00:00.000Z
  POLYGON ((409900 -11700,12900 -11700,12900 0,409900 0,409900 -11700))

does not work.

Well, I’m stuck at this point. How to access GDAL subdataset from MapServer? Anybody has idea? Wan’s to share?

For the mapping part, HSLayers (derivate of OpenLayers) is used, which development was speeded up during last months. However, we still have to do lots of work in it’s development.

The metadata part uses (beside ExtJS and OpenLayers on the client-side) MIcKA metadata catalogue server developed by HS-RS.

So, let there be INSPIRE in Czech.

Several unit tests suits are out there, you can see a nice list on JavaScript Assertation unit framework, which was both – easy to be installed and easy-to-be used, and JavaScript-only (nor server-side needed). OpenLayers is using test anotherway suit, but after that, Fireunit caught my eye.

If you have Firebug installed (which is assumed), just install other plugin – Fireunit. The project seems to be pretty new, but yet usable. You can follow some examples, which can be found – it is as easy as possible.

This will give you unit tests, integrated to the browser – no server-side installation, works everywhere any time, no configuration – just works out of the box. Too nice to be truth, but yet seems to be, by now.

PDF can be downloaded from http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/data/geoinformatics/2009/geoinformatics-fce-ctu-2009-04.pdf

Content:

1. Bartoň R.: Custom OpenStreetMap Rendering – OpenTrackMap Experinence
2. Richta T., Hrubý M.: Dynamic object-oriented geospatial modeling
3. Charvát K.: Future of Open Source systems
4. Loewe P.: On scripting GRASS GIS: Building location-independent command line tools
5. Vohnout P., Cepický J.: OpenStreetMap over WMS
6. Růžička J.: Web Service Based on GeoTools in The Atlas of Fire Protection

Several steps have been provided, to get it working. And the main one is, that PyWPS runs with Jython as interpreter. My feeling is, that is is not Python anymore, but Java with Pythonish syntax. Anyway, it looks like little magic to me, but seems to be working. Documentation will follow soon.

I will stop now to compile custom packages, at least, until Ubuntu GIS will provide up-to-date packages, which are working. Many thanks to all Ubuntu-GIS people, they are doing a good job.

So, now, all who want to have up-to-date software, add

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable/ubuntu karmic main

to your /etc/apt/sources.list file (works for jaunty too).

You can have every possible webbrowser in your system in any possible version, except for IE. I, as Linux user, am the only one in the team, who can test on all currently used Explorer versions. I would be happy, if I needn’t. Do you have similar problems?

Virtualbox is your friend.

Please, report any problems in case, something does not work.