Spatial Information
Integration Services
(SIIS)
A South Australian implementation
of ISO 19115
ISO/TC211 Workshop on Standards in Action
Adelaide, South Australia
October 2001
Mr. Neil Sandercock, SA Spatial Information Committee
Mr. Rob Crompton, Aspect Computing Pty Ltd
Agenda
• The SA Govt’s Spatial Initiative
• SIIS Overview
– the vision, design objectives, business models
• Data Discovery
– technology & standards
– using an object model for metadata
– Real World Views and Information Community
Views
• Lessons learned
The “Spatial Initiative”
• The SA Govt’s Spatial Initiative was
conceived in 1992
• Enjoys highest level of support
• Its objectives are to:
– build a sustainable, export-focused spatial
industry in SA
– gain operational efficiencies by process
reform within government
– empower the community and industry with
ready access to government information
The SIIS Vision
• “to develop and implement the technology
for a spatial information infrastructure for
the SA government and the broader
community that will enable spatial
information from any number of disparate
data sources to be accessed by users and
business systems anywhere across the
State”
Design Objectives
• generic, best-of-breed components, open,
scalable, distributable
• support existing standards, reactive to new and
evolving standards
• support legacy systems (preserve existing
agency investments)
• vendor independent
• provide clear separation of responsibilities
(custodian, deliverer, client)
• able to be commercialised
The Spatial Business Model
High Level State Needs
economic, community, environment
Govt Business Needs
asset management, emergency
response, environmental
protection, land administration,
resource development
Spatial Applications
Spatial Information
Integration Services
Spatial Datasets
Policy and
Standards
SIIS Services Model
Spatial Browser
Agency Applications
Client
Web Interface
API
Application Interfaces
Service Manager
Directory Services
Service
Deliverer
Security Services
Accounting and Commerce Services
Spatial Information
Integration Services
Query and Response Services
Integration Services
Access Services
Data
Custodian
Dataset Interfaces
Datasets
Spatial Information
Integration Services
Data Discovery
presented by
Mr Rob Crompton
Aspect Computing Pty Ltd
The SIIS Project
• Technology
– Built around strategic commercial-off-theshelf technologies
– scalable, open architecture
– browser-based (of course)
– designed to handle medium to high data
volume spatial queries from multiple data
sets
– multi-thread capable
The SIIS Project
• Standards used
– ISO 19110: providing a framework for
classifying real world phenomena in a set of
geographic data
– ISO 19115: providing a structure for describing
digital geographic data in metadata
– ISO 23950: providing a standard for
communicating between library/information
based systems
The SIIS Project
• Specific themes & features for creating
the Real World View from:
– AS 2482 & AS 4270: feature coding for
spatial data interchange
– FGDC: US Federal Geographic Data
Committee
– DIGEST: Digital Geographic Information
Exchange Standard
– TSSDS: US Tri Service Spatial Data
Standard
Data Discovery
• Two stages of discovery:
– select an “area of interest”
• via a polygon on a map
• via a gazetteer
– search through metadata
• via a theme search using a pre-defined
Information Community View
• via field searches
Data Discovery
• Spatial metadata is:
– structured according to ISO 19115
• ISO 19115 CD1 is to Draft ISO 19115 as
HTML is to XML
• structure specified by UML which we translated to
a relational database structure
• DTD specified as part of ISO 19115
– organised into categories via Real World
Views & Information Community Views
Views
• The Real World View (RWV) is an ISO
19110 defined structure for the naming
of geographic entities
• Information Community Views (ICV):
– map to the RWV
– use the terminology of a particular user
community to make searching easier
– a catalogue for a particular community
Views
• The RWVs and ICVs have hierarchical
structures
• For example, an ICV for “Environmental
Management”
– themes (hydrography)
• feature types (aquifer recharge area)
– attributes (flow rate, salinity, discharge, pH etc)
Views
Information
Community
View 1
Metadata record
Metadata record
Metadata record
Real
World
View
Information
Community
View 2
Environmental
Managers
Property
Developers
Information
Community
View 3
Local
Government
Datasets
Metadata
Metadata
"catalogues"
Information
Communities
Lessons Learned
• Converting existing metadata into the
new structure requires a significant
effort - plan for it
– scripts & parsing to leverage any structure
existing in the original metadata
• Maintain the principles of good userinterface design for metadata
maintenance whilst grappling with the
complexity of the standards and how to
implement them
Lessons Learned
• In general, the standards are abstract,
specifying structure but little on content
or specific examples
– ill-defined metadata elements / fields
– difficult to determine the intent of the
Committee
• There is no single source of information
on which to develop a RWV - we
consolidated our RWV from a large
number of standards & guidelines
Lessons Learned
• working with an evolving standard
requires a strong link to the standards
body: we were able to provide valuable
feedback on improvements
• Obtaining copies of draft Standards by
“early implementers” requires a process
– straightforward & cost free
Lessons Learned
• provides a significant opportunity to
upgrade Government spatial data to
leverage the open approach (eg
Gazetteer)
• Implementation technologies are
immature & rapidly improving
– choice of Java (J2EE) was the correct
strategic choice
– XML will open up the exchange of spatial
information between governments and
private sector users
Questions