FOSS4G North America Conference 2013 Preliminary Program

software stack for implementing data delivery and discovery is being created using the CKAN
platform. CKAN was chosen based on a comparison of platform capabilities with system
requirements. The major stack components are CKAN, GeoServer, SOLR, and Postgresql with
PostGIS extension; the stack supports Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services,
including Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), and Catalog Service for the
Web (CSW). The goal of this software development is to ease the burden on data providers who
wish to publish data in the system by establishing new nodes. This software package constitutes
a reference implementation for the US Geoscience Information Network architecture that is the
basis for the NGDS. In order to provide NGDS data consumers with a highly functional interface
to access data in the system, a web map interface for CKAN is being developed utilizing
Leaflet/OpenLayers open­source GUI library.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), NGDS standards, protocols, and reference
implementations are being developed by the Arizona Geological Survey and Siemens Corporate
Research. Data are being provided by more than sixty institutions.
Understanding Epidemics Through Interactive Maps
Aashis Lamsal and Michael C. Wimberly of the Geographic Information Science Center of
Excellence, South Dakota State University
Disseminating spatial information about health outcomes and associated risk factors enables
health scientists and public health professionals to monitor epidemics, understand the
processes that cause disease spread, and communicate this information to policy makers and
the general public. As a result, there is a need for technologies that facilitate the development of
cost­effective Web GIS applications for public health. In response, we developed two interactive
geospatial visualization prototypes using open source tools to empower public health officials
and decision makers to visualize and explore spatiotemporal patterns and environmental risk
factors of two diseases of concern in the United States: West Nile virus and obesity.
Both applications were developed using a service oriented architecture based on the Open
Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard, which uses Web Map Service, Styled Layer Descriptor,
Web Map Context, and Web Map Tile Service specifications to visualize geospatial information in
the Web. In addition, freely available Google APIs, HTML5, and JQuery were incorporated to add
user interactivity and control the visualization layouts.
In the first case study, West Nile virus incidence was visualized across the conterminous United
States at the county level through interactive maps and time­series graphs. The interface
allowed users to select a viewing region and easily map disease incidence patterns for multiple
years and to quickly access pop­up time series graphs for individual counties. In the second
case study, users were able to select multiple variables and map them simultaneously to
facilitate visualization and exploratory analysis of the environmental determinants of obesity.
The Open­Sourcing of DNR GPS
Chris Pouliot, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources