Geoinformation Sharing System for East and Southeast Asia Using SDI, OGC Web Services and FOSS

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative, cost-effective and efficient web-based sharing system for geoscience information among the countries in East and Southeast Asia. The information system’s main components are organized following the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) model. It also uses the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Processing Service (WPS) for online spatial data rendition and processing, respectively. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) are also used for other important spatial data processing functions. The geospatial contents of the information system are stored and managed using the open source software PostgreSQL and its PostGIS extension. The information system makes spatial data sharing more efficient and organized by formulating a hierarchical information content classification scheme and the option for the users to put up their own customized WebGIS portals. These give users the option to show their chosen geospatial contents on their own web-based platform. The information system also makes spatial data sharing more flexible by providing data owners the choice to determine the data access privileges for each user or group of users. It also provides module for processing, rendering and sharing Japan’s ASTER satellite images. The information system is called GSi for Geoinformation Sharing Infrastructure for East and Southeast Asia. The URL of the web-based information system is https://ccop-gsi.org/main/index.html.