Serverless Geospatial Data Processing Workflow System Design

Geospatial data and related technologies have become an increasingly important aspect of data analysis processes, with their prominent role in most of them. Serverless paradigm have become the most popular and frequently used technology within cloud computing. This paper reviews the serverless paradigm and examines how it could be leveraged for geospatial data processes by using open standards in the geospatial community. We propose a system design and architecture to handle complex geospatial data processing jobs with minimum human intervention and resource consumption using serverless technologies. In order to define and execute workflows in the system, we also propose new models for both workflow and task definitions models. Moreover, the proposed system has new Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Application Programming Interface (API) Processes specification-based web services to provide interoperability with other geospatial applications with the anticipation that it will be more commonly used in the future. We implemented the proposed system on one of the public cloud providers as a proof of concept and evaluated it with sample geospatial workflows and cloud architecture best practices.

DESIGN OF A SERVERLESS OGC WPS BASED GEOPROCESSING SERVICE SOLUTION

Geospatial data and related technologies have increasingly become a crucial part of big data analysis processes and even a prominent player in most of them. Serverless architectures have become today's trending and widely used technology within the cloud computing paradigm. In this paper, we review the serverless paradigm advantages over traditional cloud architecture models and infrastructures. Moreover, we examined the deployment of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Processing Service (WPS) specification based geoprocessing Application Programming Interface (API) with serverless architecture. In this context, we propose a system design and review it in detail together with the results discussed along with use cases.

Geodesign as a support for proposing actions to fulfil the Sustainable Development Goals

This paper discusses the state of the art in Geodesign, as a result from the evolution in the use of geospatial data for shared and co-creative planning. The evolution of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) led to significant advances in geovisualization, the use of cartographic data via the Internet and the construction of SDIs (Spatial Data Infrastructures). These advances fostered the emergence of Geodesign as one of the foundations for territorial planning. The text will also introduce a Brazilian Geodesign platform, GISColab, developed according to the standards set by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The platform introduces layer creation resources via WPS (Web Processing Service), as well as tools for measuring the performance of participatory planning workshops, presently focusing on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We introduce case studies in which SDGs were explored in different ways: in post-workshop analyses conducted by coordinators and participants, as well as its application as a supportive tool for decision-making during the workshop, via WPS. Finally, we also discuss the inclusion of SDGs to raise awareness of its key themes and support opinion building, resulting in transformative learning experiences.

Optimizing precision agricultural operations by standardized cloud-based functions

Aim of study: An approach to integrate knowledge into the IT-infrastructure of precision agriculture (PA) is presented. The creation of operation relevant information is analyzed and explored to be processed by standardized web services and thereby to integrate external knowledge into PA. The target is to make knowledge integrable into any software solution. Area of study: The data sampling took place at the Heidfeld Hof Research Station in Stuttgart, Germany. Material and methods: This study follows the information science’s idea to separate the process from data sampling into the final actuation through four steps: data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. The process from the data acquisition, over a professional data treatment to the actual application is analyzed by methods modelled in the Unified Modelling Language (UML) for two use-cases. It was further applied for a low altitude sensor in a PA operation; a data sampling by UAV represents the starting point. Main results: For the implemented solution, the Web Processing Service (WPS) of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is proposed. This approach reflects the idea of a function as a service (FaaS), in order to develop a demand-driven and extensible solution for irregularly used functionalities. PA benefits, as on-farm processes are season oriented and a FaaS reflects the farm’s variable demands over time by origin and extends the concept to offer external know-how for the integration into specific processes. Research highlights: The standardized implementation of knowledge into PA software products helps to generate additional benefits for PA.

GeoSPARQL 1.1: An Almost Decadal Update to the Most Important Geospatial LOD Standard

In 2012 the Open Geospatial Consortium published GeoSPARQL defining “an RDF/OWL ontology for [spatial] information”, “SPARQL extension functions” for performing spatial operations on RDF data and “RIF rules” defining entailments to be drawn from graph pattern matching. In the 8+ years since its publication, GeoSPARQL has become the most important spatial Semantic Web standard, as judged by references to it in other Semantic Web standards and its wide use for Semantic Web data. An update to GeoSPARQL was proposed in 2019 to deliver a version 1.1 with a charter to: handle outstanding change requests and source new ones from the user community and to “better present” the standard, that is to better link all the standard’s parts and better document & exemplify elements. Expected updates included new geometry representations, alignments to other ontologies, handling of new spatial referencing systems, and new artifact presentation. In this paper, we describe motivating change requests and actual resultant updates in the candidate version 1.1 of the standard alongside reference implementations and usage examples. We also describe the theory behind particular updates, initial implementations of many parts of the standard, and our expectations for GeoSPARQL 1.1’s use.

Scalability in the Application of Geodesign in Brazil: Expanding the Use of the Brazilian Geodesign Platform to Metropolitan Regions in Transformative-Learning Planning

The Brazilian Geodesign platform was proposed based on extensive experience in Geodesign workshops, aiming to adapt the method to the country’s cultural specificities, with a commitment to support the construction of opinions in planning, in the process of transformative-learning planning. To test the scalability of the method, a study was developed in 13 metropolitan regions of the country, with the involvement of universities, distributed from north to south, in different biomes and urbanization conditions. The same method was proposed for everyone, starting from the same collection of 40 thematic maps to support discussions about alternative futures in land use. Participants used the GISColab platform and went through the same stages of analysis, proposition, and negotiation of ideas. As a result, there was an improvement in the projects developed between the first and the last day of work, with the expansion of compliance with the goals of sustainable development (SDG) and areas for carbon credit. It was possible to observe that, although they used the same framework proposed, each group adapted the method to their local reality, proving the scalability of the process and the necessary flexibility for employment in different realities, ensuring a defensible and reproducible criterion. As recommendations, it would be interesting to apply the same study of multiple simultaneous cases in another country, to analyze the scalability and flexibility to local changes, as it happened in the experiment. This would be entirely possible, as the platform is based on worldwide OGC standards (Open Geospatial Consortium) and would have full interoperability in use.

Geospatial User Feedback: How to Raise Users’ Voices and Collectively Build Knowledge at the Same Time

Geospatial data is used not only to contemplate reality but also, in combination with analytical tools, to generate new information that requires interpretation. In this process data users gain knowledge about the data and its limitations (the user side of data quality) as well as knowledge on the status and evolutions of the studied phenomena. Knowledge can be annotations on top of the data, responses to questions, a careful description of the processes applied, a piece of software code or scripts applied to the data, usage reports or a complete scientific paper. This paper proposes an extension of the current Open Geospatial Consortium standard for Geospatial User Feedback to include the required knowledge elements, and a practical implementation. The system can incrementally collect, store, and communicate knowledge elements created by users of the data and keep them linked to the original data by means of permanent data identifiers. The system implements a Web API to manage feedback items as a frontend to a database. The paper demonstrates how a JavaScript widget accessing this API as a client can be easily integrated into existing data catalogues, such as the ECOPotential web service or the GEOEssential data catalogue, to collectively collect and share knowledge.

QQuake, a QGIS Plugin for Loading Seismological Data From Web Services

An increasing number of web services providing convenient access to seismological data have become available in recent years. A huge effort at multiple levels was required to achieve this goal and the seismological community was engaged in the standardization of both data formats and web services. Although access to seismological data is much easier than in the past, users encounter problems because of the large number of web services, and due to the complexity of the discipline-specific data encodings. In addition, instead of adopting cross-disciplinary standards such as those by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), most seismological web services created their own standards, primarily those by the International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN). This article introduces “QQuake,” a plugin for QGIS—the Open Source Geographic Information System—that aims at making access to seismological data easier. The plugin is based on an Open Source code available on GitHub, and it is designed in a modular and customizable way, allowing users to easily include new web services.

CityThings: An integration of the dynamic sensor data to the 3D city model

Devices from the Internet of Things are being increasingly used in everyday life, and they provide a massive amount of data in various formats. While implementing the Smart Cities initiative, these data are integrated and utilized together with the 3D city model for further applications. Based on Open Geospatial Consortium standards, heterogeneous sensor data can be integrated with the Open Geospatial Consortium SensorThings Application Programming Interface. Similarly, the 3D city model data can be stored and exchanged with the Open Geospatial Consortium CityGML format. However, currently, there is no concrete model to integrate these sensor data with the 3D city model using the Open Geospatial Consortium standards. The existing solution for integrating the sensor data into the 3D city model requires an extension or plug-in for adding the data to the CityGML model. In this paper, we introduce the concept of “CityThings” to integrate dynamic sensor data from the Open Geospatial Consortium SensorThings API into the CityGML 3D city models. We demonstrate the implementation of the CityThings concept in the Smart Villages project in the study area of Wüstenrot, Germany, by integrating dynamic sensor data from several systems including solar panels, agro-thermal plants, and weather monitoring sensors to visualize the sensor data with the 3D city model on the web platform. In the future, this concept can be applied to interconnect dynamic sensor data and 3D city model data in other Smart Cities applications.

Geo-feature modeling uncertainties in discrete global grids: a case study of downtown Calgary, Canada

The Open Geospatial Consortium has officially adopted discrete global grid systems (DGGS) as a new option for Earth reference standards. Many state-of-the-art DGGS implementations have been developed, revealing the potential for DGGS applications. Before the wide application of DGGS in solving real-world problems, however, the potential uncertainties of modeling on DGGS should be investigated and documented. This study focused on the uncertainties of geo-feature modeling on DGGS, quantitatively measured the point position displacement and line and polygon features’ geometry distortion, and evaluated the validity of topological relationships. Specifically, traffic cameras (points), main streets (lines), and land-cover classes (polygons) of downtown Calgary (AB, Canada) were modeled in various DGGS configurations at multiple resolutions. Results showed that the point displacement and polygon distortion generally reduced when being modeled at a higher resolution. The tessellations with the monotonical convergence characteristic are recommended if cell indices are expected to represent levels of model precision. Line features’ fidelity was affected by grid tessellations, resolution levels, grid orientation relative to the Earth, and the rotated line directions. The degree of the line distortion was not straightforward to forecast. Maintaining the topological validity between spatial objects with various granularities was challenging and needed further algorithm development for DGGS implementations. The study outcomes can serve as useful guidelines in the selection among grid types, refinement ratios, and resolution levels when applying DGGS implementations to urban environments. This paper also pinpoints several research directions that can benefit the quantization and analysis of vector features on DGGS.