You probably heard the question “How can citizens benefit from the European Union” many times already, and might have wondered about that too. After all, we often hear that things get regulated like crazy and that the EU is too bureaucratic. The European Union has brought a lot of advantages to the citizens of its members and associated countries, such as:
- Investments into infrastructure, especially in less developed areas through structural funding
- Clean lakes and Rivers through the Water Framework Directive
- Better air quality through lead-free patrol and air quality reporting
- Less noise through the Noise Directive
- More consumer rights, e.g. in air travel and telecommunications
- Labour protection and workplace security
- Simplified travel and exchange of goods
- Strong wildlife protection (Habitats Directive, Natura 2000, many others)
If you scratch the surface, the INSPIRE directive doesn’t seem to have much to do with the list above. If you look deeper, however, INSPIRE actually supports many of these activities directly. INSPIRE is thus more than making your network services interoperable. It ensures that information can be shared between agencies, citizens and businesses with maximum efficiency. By harnessing the full power of interoperable geodata, it is not only the GIS community that benefits. Interoperable geodata creates a ripple effect which makes life easier for inter-governmental decision-makers and organizations. As boundaries between data disappear, policy decisions take less time and have better outcomes.
The INSPIRE Directive encompasses 34 different data themes, all of which help the population in certain capacities. Here are a couple of highlights.
You probably heard the question “How can citizens benefit from the European Union” many times already, and might have wondered about that too. After all, we often hear that things get regulated like crazy and that the EU is too bureaucratic. The European Union has brought a lot of advantages to the citizens of its members and associated countries, such as:
- Investments into infrastructure, especially in less developed areas through structural funding
- Clean lakes and Rivers through the Water Framework Directive
- Better air quality through lead-free patrol and air quality reporting
- Less noise through the Noise Directive
- More consumer rights, e.g. in air travel and telecommunications
- Labour protection and workplace security
- Simplified travel and exchange of goods
- Strong wildlife protection (Habitats Directive, Natura 2000, many others)
If you scratch the surface, the INSPIRE directive doesn’t seem to have much to do with the list above. If you look deeper, however, INSPIRE actually supports many of these activities directly. INSPIRE is thus more than making your network services interoperable. It ensures that information can be shared between agencies, citizens and businesses with maximum efficiency. By harnessing the full power of interoperable geodata, it is not only the GIS community that benefits. Interoperable geodata creates a ripple effect which makes life easier for inter-governmental decision-makers and organizations. As boundaries between data disappear, policy decisions take less time and have better outcomes.
The INSPIRE Directive encompasses 34 different data themes, all of which help the population in certain capacities. Here are a couple of highlights.
Human Health and Safety:
Information from different sources (such as environmental data) needs to be aggregated and analyzed to form a well-planned health and safety infrastructure.
The Human Health and Safety theme ties in with various other themes such as Natural Risk Zones, Soil, and Air Pollution data. Based on these insights, it is possible to have an accurate prediction of Health Infrastructure requirements and design. According to the Human Health and Safety Data specifications, “Inspire infrastructure may provide a unique opportunity to identify possible links between health effects and underlying environmental conditions/exposures that might be related to poor or good health.” Dependable geospatial data will help us to identify relations between cases of poor health and potential environmental factors, and to make decisions based on these.
For example, by gathering insights on the changes particulate matter present in the air caused due to a fire in a forest and wind directions, it would be possible to predict a consequential higher particulate matter presence in another location if the data is interoperable and dependable. Based on this, the correct health resources can be prepared and necessary warnings can be sent out. This kind of information also helps to gain insights on the potential causes of diseases.
Natural Risk Zones
Each year, 160 million people are affected by natural disasters (WHO Study.) Trustworthy and dependable data on risk zones must be provided to all stakeholders to ensure that casualties can be prevented.
The natural risk zone theme provides dependable and interoperable geodata about regions that are at a risk of being affected by natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and landslides. Access to this data can help citizens better understand the potential consequences of living in or visiting certain locations during certain times of the year. It allows for the accurate assessment of safety standards of regions and help prevent casualties that could arise out of natural disasters, and positively affect land use patterns.
An accurate map of landslide prone areas that are divided into high risk, medium risk and low risk can help people calculate the best and safest travel routes across risk zones. This would also be reflected in other decisions, such as construction practices and building restrictions.
Population Distribution and Demography
Population statistics play a key part in policy-making. The data flow across public sector organizations is important to gain an understanding of regions and to assess the existing situation. This association is critical to understand the economic and social make-up of regions.
The population distribution and demography theme helps identify patterns in population density, and also provides sub-categories for the population such as education level, profession, sex, marital status, nationality and others. The formal definition according to Directive 2007/2/EC is, (a) “Geographical distribution of people, including population characteristics and activity levels, aggregated by grid, region, administrative unit or other analytical unit.” It is tightly tied to the “Statistical Units” theme and does not contain any spatial data in and of itself. Access to this data allows to a better understanding of human settlement models, population demographics and consequently an inclusive and resource-efficient policy-making structure.
Data on population density and the breakdown of population statistics is useful for resource planning and policy making.
Transport Networks
Transportation networks are a critical part of INSPIRE due to the cross-border transport networks that are built across EU member states. These networks facilitate commercial as well as non-commercial activities. Approximately 3.5 million people move across EU borders every day, and more make use of domestic transport networks.(European Added Value Initiative) Reliable and interoperable transport data is required to ensure optimal and safe usage of transport networks.
The transport networks theme aggregates data that is important for maintaining and improving current routes, as well as creating new routes. It ties in with other topographic themes such as water networks, elevation, and land cover. According to the INSPIRE Transport Network Data specifications, “It is mainly focused on the “widely reused – widely referenced” segments of spatial objects, supporting the loose linkage between the diverse organizational data with these spatial objects and allowing the extensibility to fit into diverse applications and user’s needs.”
As the shift towards smart cities continues, interoperable transport network data is playing an especially important part in town planning. Transport data such as routes, regular traffic flows and congested zones are aggregated to devise the most efficient transportation strategy. A better transport network also provides more incentive to use less private transport, reducing emissions.
Want to know more about the full benefits of INSPIRE? Thorsten Reitz, the CEO of wetransform, will host a free 40-minute webinar that will allow you to identify and mitigate risks, accurately estimate costs and understand the full benefits of an INSPIRE Implementation. There will be two webinars; one in German and one in English. Details are as follows:
- German webinar: 17th April, 10 a.m. CET
- English webinar: 23rd April 10 a.m. CET
Interested? Send us a message to info@wetransform.to with your preferred webinar slot and we’ll get back to you!
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Without the right tools and knowledge, geodata harmonization, e.g. for an Open Standard such as INSPIRE, can be complex and time-consuming. There are a few common patterns that contribute to the complexity of geodata harmonization, and here’s a list of five things that you should look out for when undertaking a data harmonization project.
Without the right tools and knowledge, geodata harmonization, e.g. for an Open Standard such as INSPIRE, can be complex and time-consuming. There are a few common patterns that contribute to the complexity of geodata harmonization, and here’s a list of five things that you should look out for when undertaking a data harmonization project.
Mismatches between the source data and the target data
The mappings between the source data and the target data need to be mapped well. It’s good to have a visual representation of this process. Having a diagram of what the data initially looks like, how it will be mapped, and what exactly it should look like at the end makes things easier to interepret and analyze.
Having the wrong tools
Tools that are currently in place for data harmonization workflows may need to be tweaked or changed. Not every ETL tool can keep up with the increasing complexity and size of datasets. It’s important to assess the capabilities of current tools and see if their capacity can match up to the task at hand. If it can’t, it may be time to look into a new toolset that can better serve your needs and help you perform your tasks easily and efficiently.
Combining software inefficiently
There are different parts of the data harmonization process that include publishing original datasets, metadata generation and validation, data transformation and publishing and viewing of services. There are various tools that you can use for each of these stages, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the output from each tool will be extensible and guarantee a successful input for the next tool. There is a loss of data consistency if there are too many application breaks, that eventually must be dealt with manually. Ensure that you’re using the right tools that have the right extensibility, or better yet, find a tool that can help you deal with all these steps in an integrated manner.
Not creating documentation
Documentation can give you the edge you need when you’re running low on project times and deadlines are looming. Imagine having an internal go-to-repository of transformation projects to help you out whenever you seem to run into an issue, or already having a specific roadmap laid out for a complex transformation project. This documentation can exist in different forms, for example, a best practices sheet or a target data model prototype set.
Placing high manual efforts in every harmonization process
Even with the correct tools, knowledge, and documentation, project times and costs could still be high because of the amount of manual work that goes in. Harmonization projects often have opportunities for automation; it’s important to identify the parts of the project that don’t need manual intervention. These segments can then be capitalized on by looking into how the process can be automated; this can either be done manually or with the right toolset.
Have any more ideas that could benefit the community? Check out our discussion forum to add on your ideas and link with like-minded people.
Looking for an integrated tool through which you can perform all operations relevant to data transformations? Try hale connect for free!
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We want to make 2019 the best year ever for the users of our software, and here’s the first contribution towards this: we’ve just released hale studio 3.5.0!
This version brings several changes you need to know about:
- hale studio now uses Eclipse Photon, which improves performance by up to 100% and removes several issues on non-windows platforms such as low performance on Linux with GTK 3.18 and start-up issues on macOS
- The hale pro plug-ins are now distributed through an update site. This also removed the error messages related to drop-in plug-ins.
- The GeoServer plug-in is not anymore part of the default distribution and needs to be installed through an update site.
This enables independent update cycles of the plug-in. It also realizes a clearer separation of concerns – the plug-in will now be maintained and supported by GeoSolutions.
Installing Geoserver and Pro Plug-Ins
You can find instructions on how to install plug-ins from updates sites here. Please note that for the Pro Plug-Ins you still need a license. These licenses are provided to all customers of wetransform who have a support contract.
Important note for Windows users
In case you experience problems with hale studio after upgrading from a previous version (e.g. a missing menu bar or other UI glitches), please make sure to delete or rename the workspace folder HALE in %APPDATA%\wetransform as this folder may contain data incompatible with the new Photon client platform.
Deegree Workspace configuration
A bit like the Geoserver app-schema and Xtraserver configuration, it is now also possible to generate deegree workspace configurations from hale studio alignments. This feature is only available through the user interface, not through the command line interface. Its development was funded by the Landesvermessung und Geobasisinformation Brandenburg.
Partition output by spatial extent
The GML/XML writer in hale studio already supported several partitioning modes, e.g. by Feature Type, or simply by feature count. We’ve now added support to partition output by spatial extent, using either a custom or a standard tile grid. The development of this feature was supported by swisstopo.
Other changes and fixes
- Improved Xtraserver export
- Migration support for join conditions and context filters
- Support for alignments with inline transformations in headless mode
- Summary in transformation reports
- Support for matching shortened Shapefile properties
- Upgraded Groovy to 2.4
- Upgraded PostgreSQL driver to 42.2.4, PostGIS driver to 2.2.1
- Fixed file names when partitioning by feature type in a GML export
- Improved performance for inline transformations where inlined transformation contains Groovy scripts
- Prevent change of project resources paths if project is exported to hale connect
- Prevent removal of existing source data when loading additional source data
- Allow loading hale schema definition file even if constraint type can’t be recreated
The complete changelog is available here.
Plans for 2019
Our current planning includes three more releases for 2019:
- 3.5.1: Bugfixes that were originally planned for 3.5.0 but didn’t make the cut; might also include updates to the GeoJSON writer to include model transformation rules (then it will become 3.6.0).
- 4.0.0: Migration to OpenJDK 11, Improved SSL certificate handling, many significant usability improvements
- 4.1.0: CRS handling improvements, remaining issues after 4.0.0 release
Download hale studio
Download the latest version and send us your feedback:
Thanks to our customers for funding this work on the 26th release of hale studio!
We want to make 2019 the best year ever for the users of our software, and here’s the first contribution towards this: we’ve just released hale studio 3.5.0!
This version brings several changes you need to know about:
- hale studio now uses Eclipse Photon, which improves performance by up to 100% and removes several issues on non-windows platforms such as low performance on Linux with GTK 3.18 and start-up issues on macOS
- The hale pro plug-ins are now distributed through an update site. This also removed the error messages related to drop-in plug-ins.
- The GeoServer plug-in is not anymore part of the default distribution and needs to be installed through an update site.
This enables independent update cycles of the plug-in. It also realizes a clearer separation of concerns – the plug-in will now be maintained and supported by GeoSolutions.
Installing Geoserver and Pro Plug-Ins
You can find instructions on how to install plug-ins from updates sites here. Please note that for the Pro Plug-Ins you still need a license. These licenses are provided to all customers of wetransform who have a support contract.
Important note for Windows users
In case you experience problems with hale studio after upgrading from a previous version (e.g. a missing menu bar or other UI glitches), please make sure to delete or rename the workspace folder HALE in %APPDATA%\wetransform as this folder may contain data incompatible with the new Photon client platform.
Deegree Workspace configuration
A bit like the Geoserver app-schema and Xtraserver configuration, it is now also possible to generate deegree workspace configurations from hale studio alignments. This feature is only available through the user interface, not through the command line interface. Its development was funded by the Landesvermessung und Geobasisinformation Brandenburg.
Partition output by spatial extent
The GML/XML writer in hale studio already supported several partitioning modes, e.g. by Feature Type, or simply by feature count. We’ve now added support to partition output by spatial extent, using either a custom or a standard tile grid. The development of this feature was supported by swisstopo.
Other changes and fixes
- Improved Xtraserver export
- Migration support for join conditions and context filters
- Support for alignments with inline transformations in headless mode
- Summary in transformation reports
- Support for matching shortened Shapefile properties
- Upgraded Groovy to 2.4
- Upgraded PostgreSQL driver to 42.2.4, PostGIS driver to 2.2.1
- Fixed file names when partitioning by feature type in a GML export
- Improved performance for inline transformations where inlined transformation contains Groovy scripts
- Prevent change of project resources paths if project is exported to hale connect
- Prevent removal of existing source data when loading additional source data
- Allow loading hale schema definition file even if constraint type can’t be recreated
The complete changelog is available here.
Plans for 2019
Our current planning includes three more releases for 2019:
- 3.5.1: Bugfixes that were originally planned for 3.5.0 but didn’t make the cut; might also include updates to the GeoJSON writer to include model transformation rules (then it will become 3.6.0).
- 4.0.0: Migration to OpenJDK 11, Improved SSL certificate handling, many significant usability improvements
- 4.1.0: CRS handling improvements, remaining issues after 4.0.0 release
Download hale studio
Download the latest version and send us your feedback:
Thanks to our customers for funding this work on the 26th release of hale studio!
(more)
The 2020 deadline for INSPIRE implementation is approaching. Many implementers are deciding on the toolset to aid them with this implementation. Currently, organizations are preparing Annexx II and II implementation, or are working hard to deliver INSPIRE Priority data sets.
To ensure your success with the implementation, we are offering critical capabilities to a successful implementation as a discounted bundle to help you reduce risks, cut costs and implement INSPIRE with maximum efficiency. Give your INSPIRE implementation a boost with this special package:
Hale Connect Micro Organisation License
Metadata validation, publishing and viewing of services and data harmonization: These three processes form the cornerstones of the INSPIRE Implementation process. The complexity of each process along with the aplication breaks results in significant challenges for preserving data quality and full standard compliance. With hale connect, you can perform all of these tasks on an integrated platform. With the hale connect micro organisation license, you get:
- Unlimited transformation projects, data models and themes
- 3 Named User accounts
- 500 capacity points, which allow you to publish approximately 20 WMS/WFS datasets of 100 MB volume each.
Public Cloud Hosting
hale connect is available in on premise, private cloud and public cloud hosting. Public cloud hosting is the most cost-effective way to host small to midscale amounts of services. Since your services are being hosted on a shared platform, the application management and maintenance will be handled. The cloud that your data will be hosted on complies with C5 Standards which offer the highest level of security, reliability and scalability.
INSPIRE SLA
We guarantee that the data sets we create as well as the service we provide are fully INSPIRE compliant. This means that services hosted on our platform meet the INSPIRE service quality requirements such as availability, throughput and response time. We also guarantee updates to any components of the system to meet updated INSPIRE specifications within six months of them being released.
Support from the INSPIRE experts
Our goal is to make INSPIRE work for you. For this purpose, we offer you our expertise stemming from more than 200 INSPIRE implementation projects. As part of this package, you get access to our support and can request specific support, e.g. for:
- Set up of publishing and metadata configuration
- Development of transformation projects
- General training and workshops
The package includes 40 hours of support to allow you to reach your full potential as fast as possible, and reduce time taken on critical projects. This is enough to support you with implementing 2-3 INSPIRE themes, and will provide you with a strong foundation for future implementations.
If you’d like to try it out yourself before making a decision, you can sign up for a free trial here.
The bundle is priced at €8.000 per year.
The minimum contract duration is 12 months. All prices are without VAT; reverse charge may apply.
Contact us to learn more about what this offer can do for you and see how you can implement INSPIRE with ease.
The 2020 deadline for INSPIRE implementation is approaching. Many implementers are deciding on the toolset to aid them with this implementation. Currently, organizations are preparing Annexx II and II implementation, or are working hard to deliver INSPIRE Priority data sets.
To ensure your success with the implementation, we are offering critical capabilities to a successful implementation as a discounted bundle to help you reduce risks, cut costs and implement INSPIRE with maximum efficiency. Give your INSPIRE implementation a boost with this special package:
Hale Connect Micro Organisation License
Metadata validation, publishing and viewing of services and data harmonization: These three processes form the cornerstones of the INSPIRE Implementation process. The complexity of each process along with the aplication breaks results in significant challenges for preserving data quality and full standard compliance. With hale connect, you can perform all of these tasks on an integrated platform. With the hale connect micro organisation license, you get:
- Unlimited transformation projects, data models and themes
- 3 Named User accounts
- 500 capacity points, which allow you to publish approximately 20 WMS/WFS datasets of 100 MB volume each.
Public Cloud Hosting
hale connect is available in on premise, private cloud and public cloud hosting. Public cloud hosting is the most cost-effective way to host small to midscale amounts of services. Since your services are being hosted on a shared platform, the application management and maintenance will be handled. The cloud that your data will be hosted on complies with C5 Standards which offer the highest level of security, reliability and scalability.
INSPIRE SLA
We guarantee that the data sets we create as well as the service we provide are fully INSPIRE compliant. This means that services hosted on our platform meet the INSPIRE service quality requirements such as availability, throughput and response time. We also guarantee updates to any components of the system to meet updated INSPIRE specifications within six months of them being released.
Support from the INSPIRE experts
Our goal is to make INSPIRE work for you. For this purpose, we offer you our expertise stemming from more than 200 INSPIRE implementation projects. As part of this package, you get access to our support and can request specific support, e.g. for:
- Set up of publishing and metadata configuration
- Development of transformation projects
- General training and workshops
The package includes 40 hours of support to allow you to reach your full potential as fast as possible, and reduce time taken on critical projects. This is enough to support you with implementing 2-3 INSPIRE themes, and will provide you with a strong foundation for future implementations.
If you’d like to try it out yourself before making a decision, you can sign up for a free trial here.
The bundle is priced at €8.000 per year.
The minimum contract duration is 12 months. All prices are without VAT; reverse charge may apply.
Contact us to learn more about what this offer can do for you and see how you can implement INSPIRE with ease.
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Wetransform is currently participating in an exchange programm for young scientists from countries in the West Balkan. Nikolina is researching how to use INSPIRE to exchange and display information on atmospheric conditions relevant for geodesic applications. This article is based on a recently published IJSDIR paper she has authored.
Currently, the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina have strategies at the state level, and national level strategies are under development. The idea for the future is that after adopting this national strategy, the iGEO portal will play the role of the core component for NSDI services.
Towards a national strategy: The Role of INSPIRE
Eleven years after INSPIRE was conceived and five years after its formal adoption, we can see clear results and benefits. Every day, more and more spatial data within the framework of INSPIRE becomes available throughout the EU e.g. Geodata Services for European soil data. They may not yet be harmonized, since that process has just started, but data is already available for discovery and viewing.
The INSPIRE process has involved hundreds of experts and professionals from all over Europe. This participatory approach is certainly innovative, not only in relation to the development of SDIs, but also for the formulation of public policy at the European level.
Current Situation
The online geoportal (named “iGEO”) makes it easier for citizens, governments, and private-sector users to find and access vast quantities of national geographic information and related services. The iGEO portal is currently an experimental research application, but it may have the potential to become the official national Bosnian and Herzegovinian portal for SDI.
The geoportal has already proven its value as an essential component of civil infrastructure planning and design. An actively operating geoportal means that other governmental organizations can use iGEO data and make their data accessible. This is the first step in establishing a Bosnia-Herzegovinian national geoportal as part of a national SDI.
The geoportal is modeled after the EU INSPIRE Directive to share geographic information across Europe. This geoportal was created by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The data available through the geoportal includes digital orthophotos, base maps, administrative units, and land survey information (Figure 1).
Wetransform is currently participating in an exchange programm for young scientists from countries in the West Balkan. Nikolina is researching how to use INSPIRE to exchange and display information on atmospheric conditions relevant for geodesic applications. This article is based on a recently published IJSDIR paper she has authored.
Currently, the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina have strategies at the state level, and national level strategies are under development. The idea for the future is that after adopting this national strategy, the iGEO portal will play the role of the core component for NSDI services.
Towards a national strategy: The Role of INSPIRE
Eleven years after INSPIRE was conceived and five years after its formal adoption, we can see clear results and benefits. Every day, more and more spatial data within the framework of INSPIRE becomes available throughout the EU e.g. Geodata Services for European soil data. They may not yet be harmonized, since that process has just started, but data is already available for discovery and viewing.
The INSPIRE process has involved hundreds of experts and professionals from all over Europe. This participatory approach is certainly innovative, not only in relation to the development of SDIs, but also for the formulation of public policy at the European level.
Current Situation
The online geoportal (named “iGEO”) makes it easier for citizens, governments, and private-sector users to find and access vast quantities of national geographic information and related services. The iGEO portal is currently an experimental research application, but it may have the potential to become the official national Bosnian and Herzegovinian portal for SDI.
The geoportal has already proven its value as an essential component of civil infrastructure planning and design. An actively operating geoportal means that other governmental organizations can use iGEO data and make their data accessible. This is the first step in establishing a Bosnia-Herzegovinian national geoportal as part of a national SDI.
The geoportal is modeled after the EU INSPIRE Directive to share geographic information across Europe. This geoportal was created by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The data available through the geoportal includes digital orthophotos, base maps, administrative units, and land survey information (Figure 1).
Technically, the iGEO geoportal offers web services allowing access to the most precise base map data. This data can be accessed by Bosnia-Herzegovinian local municipalities, government agencies and utility infrastructure organizations. The portal provides full catalogue service web (CSW) functionality via the CSW plug-in. The following standard CSW operations are currently supported:
- GetCapabilities
- GetRecords
- GetRecordById
- GetDomain
- DescribeRecord
The Internal Catalogue Store supports two metadata schemes:
- Dublin Core
- ISO Metadata Profile
iGEO raster and vector layers are registered using metadata, which describes the location, age, quality, and other characteristics of the resources (Figure 2). With access to this mapping material information, organizations can make decisions based on the best resources available. iGEO represents the geoportal component of the NSDI initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Geoportal provides the datasets concerning the following aspects:
- administrative boundaries
- buildings
- cadastral parcels
- colored DTM
- scanned maps (regardless of map scale)
- geographical names
- hydrography networks
- ortho-photographies (regardless of resolution)
- railway networks
- road networks
- airports runways
- governmental buildings
- cadastral trigonometric points (levels I-IV)
Currently, we are working towards establishing interfaces with the GeoNetwork platform to enable setting up an INSPIRE view service with GeoNetwork and GeoServer.
The impact of iGEO - One Infrastructure, Many use cases
At this point iGEO-related experimental web services already handle data requests from local municipalities and utility companies, such as the Municipality of Banja Luka, the Municipality of Prijedor, the Municpiality of Gradiška, the Municipality of Teslić, M:Tel (telecommunications provider based in the Republic of Srpska), Vodovod i kanalzacija (RS-based local water and sewer company), Elektro-Krajina (regional electricity company), and many others.
There are two software projects under development based on the iGEO services geoportal as a principal data source: AreaCAD-GIS and BrownInfo. More iGEO-based specialized applications are envisioned and their planned architectures are at different stages of completeness by utility infrastructure organizations regionwide.
The web services provided carry detailed metadata on accompanying data layers, according to ISO/TS 19139-2:2012 Geographic information – Metadata standard based on OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) rules (Figure 3):
- Web Map Service (WMS)
- Web Feature Service (WFS)
- Web Coverage Service (WCS)
- Web Map Tiled Service (WMTS)
- Catalogue Services for the Web (CSW)
- Streaming KML
- Geography Markup Language (GML)
All data provided by iGEO are serviceable by all the before mentioned web services.
AreaCAD-GIS
AreaCAD-GIS is INOVA informaticki inzenjering’s project representing a multi-tier GIS technology enabling organization-wide authoring and publishing spatial plans, metadata and design information quickly and easily for distribution, internally or on the web. The application targets municipal spatial (urban) planning departments’ productivity improvement and reduction of the time necessary for the issuing of building permits and tracking of their execution, as well as building legalization issues (Figure 8). It also serves as a bridge between a centralized municipal GIS repository and spatial planner acquisition tools by using various types of thin clients – to display acquired cadastral and urban data.
AreaCAD-GIS utilizes iGEO-based web services to query and visualize Bosnia-Herzegovinian administrative data and topographic maps (Figure 9).
BrownInfo
BrowInfo is a University of Banja Luka research project initiated with the aim of defining universal standards of identification, inventory and classification of brownfield sites. It aims to devise sets of effective methods for the collection, systematization, presentation and storage of brownfield-related data for use in the future as a basis for decisions on starting brownfield regeneration projects. Figure 10: BrownInfo software implementation related to Business Zone Incel, Banja Luka
BrownInfo software utilizes iGEO-based web services to query and visualize utility infrastructure data and orthophoto maps for targeted Banja Luka region (Poslovna zona Incel/Business Zone Incel).
Conclusion and outlook
The main stakeholders have already been “inspired” in each country as well as at the European level, which has triggered many other initiatives. Awareness has been raised throughout the public sector and individuals and organizations have been encouraged to think about their roles and the datasets for which they are responsible.
All eyes are now clearly focused on the MS. Their experiences of implementing INSPIRE in the coming period will be crucial for the planning and preparatory activities already started for the review of the INSPIRE Directive. The efficient implementation of INSPIRE also involves cost–benefit considerations, which are a core part of the process. It is important to raise awareness, especially among users, of the need to monitor the benefits, which will not immediately be obvious.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina there is no official strategy for establishing NSDI, there are just borderline strategies at the entity level for Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Administrative borders and complex relations between these two entities have resulted in a situation in which we are still waiting for Bosnia and Herzegovina to officially adopt a national strategy for NSDI. Our idea for the future is that after adopting this strategy, iGEO portal will play the role of the core component for NSDI services.
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska have not yet assigned a national geoportal, but significant progress has been made with the help of iGEO. The primary challenge faced by them in their INSPIRE Implementation is one that is faced by the majority of INSPIRE Implementers: data harmonization. This challenge, though, can be dealt with easily if the right tools such as Hale Studio are at hand.
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