Geodata processing at telascience.org

Background

As one objective of OSGeo, we want to generate/update/enhance existing free geodata for the community. This comprises re-packaging, data storage in convenient formats, tiling and other.

We are kindly supported by http://telascience.org (available resources).

Status of geodata.telascience.org

Participants

• Markus Neteler
• Frank Warmerdam
• Martin Spott

Installed Software

I have installed the following software packages on geodata.telascience.org:

• geos 2.2.3
• proj 4.5.0 - SPEC file
• ogdi-CVS (17 August 2006) - compiled with external proj, expat, zlib
• GDAL 1.3.2 - SPEC file
• GRASS 6.2.0 - SPEC file
• GDAL-OGR-GRASS plugin - SPEC file
• OSSIM (19 August 2006) - default compilation
• FWTools 1.0.5 - in /usr/local/FWTools-1.0.5, use "fwtools" alias to add to path

Source code:

• /home/neteler/software/<software>
• if taken from CVS, anon-CVS was used
• configuration is saved in each subdir as "conf_<software>.sh"

Binaries:

• all binaries are installed into /usr/local/*
• /usr/local/lib was added to /etc/ld.so.conf

Apache

Apache is running with a default configuration. The web site contents goes in /var/www/html. After a machine restart it may be necessary to restart apache with "apachectl restart" as root/sudo.

Geodata processing

• data are stored on geodata.telascience.org in /geodata/<user>
• only root/sudo can add further directories in /geodata/ (FrankW, markusN, hobu, ...)

Data: VMAP0 1:1Mio World Vector Data

• /geodata/markus/vmap0/
• eur, sas, soa are from 2000, noa from 2002
• status: downloaded
• TODO:
  • convert to SHAPE
  • tile into smaller pieces
  • cleanup attributes
  • remove annoying grid lines (dissolve in GRASS)
  • enrich country maps with population data (see here for inspiration, I have their SQL code somewhere)
• Already in Geodata_Repository#PostGIS_serving_vector_data (Martin).

Data: GSHHS World Costline Vector Data

(Global Self-consistent Hierarchical High-resolution Shoreline)

• /geodata/markus/gshhs1.5/
• from Sept. 2004
• status: downloaded (original server disappeared, but MN had a copy)
  • Original server is now here, versions newer than 1.3 are licensed as GPL:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/data/gshhs/version1.5/

• TODO:
  • convert to SHAPE - find them on the NOAA site in the shapefiles/ dir, or I've (Hamish) got a copy.

If you really want to load in original data, you can use GRASS 5.4's v.in.gshhs module.

• • tile into smaller pieces
  • cleanup/add attributes
• Already in Geodata_Repository#PostGIS_serving_vector_data (Martin).

• The OpenStreetMap.org wiki claims that the lake data is not very good. Fortunately they list some other alternatives:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Potential_Datasources#Shoreline_database

That is a very nice page to explore.

Data: Gazetteer data World from geonames.org

• /geodata/markus/geonames.org/
  • database dump in dump_17aug2006/
  • docs in docs/
  • fetch.sh script in the dump/ directory for future downloads
• status: downloaded
• TODO:
  • convert to SHAPE?
  • insert into PostGIS? - see docs/geonames_dump_into_postgresql.txt
• Already in Geodata_Repository#PostGIS_serving_vector_data (Martin).