Desembre 2011
10 years of the IDEC:
January 2002 - Desember 2011
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ÍNDEX
Barcelona, October 2000 ......................................................................................................................... 4
I.
Origins and presentation .............................................................................................................. 4
II.
2002: My first steps ...................................................................................................................... 4
Standars? Metadata? .............................................................................................................................. 5
Now, I need a Catalog.............................................................................................................................. 6
I’m growing up… ...................................................................................................................................... 6
My childhood was marked by the continuous upgrading ........................................................................ 6
III.
My childhood................................................................................................................................ 6
Beginning with sectoral SDI… .................................................................................................................. 7
IV.
My youth ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Now they know... and study me! ............................................................................................................. 8
… And then INSPIRE arrived ..................................................................................................................... 9
Reforms and adaptations ...................................................................................................................... 10
And participation of local entities .......................................................................................................... 10
as well .................................................................................................................................................... 10
Problems to be understood. A few thoughts ......................................................................................... 11
Who uses me? ........................................................................................................................................ 12
Progressing... ......................................................................................................................................... 13
Self- control ............................................................................................................................................ 14
The catalog ............................................................................................................................................ 14
Towards an extension of my goals: An SDI for geospatial resources (sensors, PRG) ............................. 15
V.
My maturity: close to my tenth birthday .................................................................................... 15
Uses, extension, visibility... is it worthwhile? ......................................................................................... 18
Are SDI dead? The INSPIRE obsession .................................................................................................... 18
From geographic information infrastructure to georesources infrastructure ....................................... 20
Not everything is permitted (or how ...................................................................................................... 20
to guide the user about quality) ............................................................................................................ 20
VI.
The future ................................................................................................................................... 20
Coming years ......................................................................................................................................... 21
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PHOTO ALBUM
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I.
Origins and presentation
A governess had to be found to look
after me during my development;
someone to take care of me, someone
to watch over my growth and guide me
through the adventure of the life I had
just begun. I must say that I was
fortunate at this juncture, as the same
person who conceived I became my
guide and mentor
Barcelona, October 2000
I was conceived from a mere idea, an
idea that almost went unnoticed. It was
the year 2000 when the Catalan section
of the AESIG prepared, presented and
distributed the White Paper on the GIS
sector in Catalonia. This document
contained my DNA, my origins, as the
most remarkable conclusion was the
need to set up an SDI in Catalonia in
order to activate and strengthen the GI
sector. The idea was not new; after the
United States NSDI began to prove
itself as a good idea, similar initiatives
started to grow in Europe.
II.
2002: My first steps
A long time ago, my mentor confessed
to me that he had no experience with
children like me. However, I must say in
his defense that no one, or almost no
one, in the world had such experience.
Nevertheless, he used his intuition to
figure out what I needed and what I
was eventually to become and be
capable of, and thus he figured out the
best way to raise me.
At that time, those who conceived me
as an idea started to shop me around,
looking for a sponsor to support me.
And that sponsor eventually appeared.
My parents’ talents as matchmakers
paved the way for the marriage
between two partners: the Secretaria
de Telecomunicacions i Societat de la
Informació, an organization with funds
to promote initiatives for digitization,
and the Institut Cartogràfic de
Catalunya, birthplace of many other
initiatives and always willing to take
part in all sorts of adventures.
He tried to shape the fundamental
ideas about my individuality and
character that had already begun to
spread. He started by analyzing other
creatures or projected creatures similar
to me all over the world; we all need
references. He did succeed in
establishing something, as he built an
initial infrastructure which I now see as
simple and childish, but that
represented a good starting point, at
that time.
That is how I came to be christened in
October 2001 in a social ceremony
chaired by the minister for Empresa y
Ocupación de la Generalitat de
Catalunya (autonomous government)
and attended by a hundred guests of all
ages and positions. My commitment to
society, and that between the two
entities that sponsored me, were
sealed.
That way, a preliminary report on how
to promote my work was prepared and
adopted by my mentors. It outlined and
discussed, to the extent allowed by the
state of the art at that time, my short
and long term goals. They could be
summarized as the following: to
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inventory the available geographic
information; to classify this information
and provide a browsing service based
on a catalog, to investigate and apply
international standards in all my
components, to promote the
cooperation of government
departments in my design, to
implement a number of pilot
demonstration projects, to
communicate my birth and future
service perspectives and, finally, to
create in me tools to disseminate,
visualize and share geoinformation.
deal. The choice was not a trivial one,
since if we were to invest considerable
effort in the description of data sets;
we had to be sure to use a format with
future projection. There was another
reason to choose the ISO 19115. At that
time, there was virtually no software to
edit and write the metadata files, and
what software existed was too
expensive. I couldn’t ask my
contributors, who were going to
voluntarily create metadata, to not only
make the effort of understanding the
standard but also to buy, install and
maintain an expensive software
package. From the beginning, I
intended to give every possible support
to my collaborators, informing and
helping them in their work, and also
providing them with free software to
ease their task. Thus, I commissioned a
program, MetaD (currently in its
version 4), that would self-load locally
on the volunteer’s PC and guide them
through metadata building. I
complemented this strategy with the
publication of a brochure explaining
who I was, why I needed metadata,
how I’d use the information and the
benefits I’d bring, as well as other
messages intended to motivate
collaborators. Thanks to this intense
“marketing” work, I soon enlisted
several organizations with the ability
and will to generate these essential
metadata I needed to take my first
steps. Of course, my founder, the ICC,
was the first to get involved and was,
and still is, my main metadata supplier.
But I must also mention the
Departament de Medi Ambient and the
CREAF research center, who
accompanied me in those first and
fundamental steps.
A website (Geoportal) was created for
my presentation in society. It
announced my existence, and featured
documented information on similar
well-known projects, and access to
information on international standards.
The Geoportal also outlined the project
targets. Actually, it was little more than
a mere "birth announcement" after the
already-mentioned public commitment.
Standars? Metadata?
My first main activity was to inventory
the available information and describe
it using informative forms called
metadata. Consequently, one of my
first tasks was to decide which
metadata standard to use. At that time,
the only known operative standard was
the CSDG, created by the FGDC,
although the ISO 19115 was being
mentioned with increasing frequency.
They were similar and both very
complex, but we had to decide which
one to use. In the end, we chose the
latter, mainly because of its
"international" qualification. It took us
a long time to understand the structure
and meaning of all the fields described
in the standard, but we learned a great
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Now, I need a Catalog
thousands of requests are received
every year). Of course, I remember the
task of preparing the already-existing
digital data for publication on
continuous map servers as arduous and
complex, but it was essential for my
enterprise to succeed. These tasks
could be completed thanks to funds
received from the Secretaria de
Telecomunicacions i Societat de la
Informació for my launch and
development. Without that support, I
would probably not be writing my own
story right now.
While I was thinking about metadata, I
also wondered how I would publicize
them. I needed a catalog where
information could be loaded and
browsed through using different
filtering criteria. By the end of 2002, I
had found a product that could meet
these requirements. I needed to
improve the Geoportal and provide it
with additional content and attractive
services, including a catalog. In short, I
had to give factual proof that I was
viable and more than a simple idea. To
meet my expectations, I needed more
people to look after me, caregivers able
to make improvements and implement
new services, starting with the geovisualization services (WMS Client). My
childhood had begun.
III.
I’m growing up…
My childhood was marked by the
continuous upgrading of the tools I
offered (for instance, the new version,
v.2, of MetaD and new releases of the
viewer), as well as an ongoing
enlargement of the number of
metadata in the catalog and, to a lesser
extent, the increasing number of map
servers being integrated in the IDEC
network. Those were my main concerns
at this stage of my development.
Several improvements in the catalog
interface increased its usability and
query efficiency, and new research
criteria were added to the map viewer
(cadastral reference, postal address,
and toponymy). Moreover, step by
step, I provided the system with
capacity enough to accelerate answers
to queries and guarantee its
operability.
My childhood
A new, more mature and complete
version of the Geoportal was released
in early 2003. It included the
aforementioned catalog and a standard
viewer based on a WMS client. It was
developed by my caretakers and
allowed connection with the first WMS
services served by the ICC. This
institution then made a courageous
decision: to publish its digital
topographic data for free and offer
these data sets on-line as a service of
the IDEC. It was crucial for me at that
stage of my development. Information
such as orthophotos, coverages and
topographic maps was then available to
thousands of users, who are still using
it today (ICC now has its own viewing
and downloading services, independent
from the IDEC, and hundreds of
It was also my responsibility to notify
any organization eligible to participate
in the initiative; and that is why I
assumed the tasks of testing different
WMS, explaining their attributes and
advantages and providing a help
manual (complementary to support
personnel) for the installation of OGC
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WMS to the new partners. Of course, I
had problems in my first experiences
with communication between WMS
from different software providers,
because although they all claimed to
publish under the OGC standard, it was
actually more complicated and we
needed certain patches for the
distributed system to interoperate.
organizations grew. Some of the steps
taken during that time finally bore their
fruits in 2006, the year I identify with
the beginning my youth.
IV.
Beginning with sectoral SDI…
My youth
In 2006, several events led to a turning
point in my life. At that time, a number
of the projects I had been nursing over
the previous years were executed. Of
course, it was not by chance, but there
are times when life suddenly takes big
steps. I’m going to talk about the big
steps I took that year, typical of a young
body, enthusiastic and feeling that I
was starting to understand my life and
goals.
From that early period, I also
remember the first steps of a successful
long-term strategy. It consisted of
promoting sector-specific data
infrastructures that, while keeping the
particularities of their own fields, could
nourish my entire structure. I’ll discuss
this point in detail later on, but I must
mention the first one, the IDE Costes
(Coast SDI), that originated in a
European project, EUROSION.
To summarize everything that
happened to me, I’ll first list the events
that marked my early puberty. Later on,
I’ll describe some of them in greater
detail:
By late 2003, up to 123 layers, provided
by a dozen suppliers and as many as
15,000 metadata records, provided by
30 suppliers, and were available
through the IDEC client.
An Act of the Parlament de
Catalunya (Law of December 16,
2005) and its Regulations (July
2006) officially created the IDEC
and provided legal recognition to
me and the support center devoted
to my development.
The sectoral SDI project IDE Local
started in cooperation with the
entity of the Catalan government
responsible for electronic
administration. IDE Local
encouraged massive participation
of local administrations in the
regional SDI.
The sectoral SDI project IDE Univers
began within a European project in
collaboration with other partners in
Italy and Greece, setting the basis
As I wanted to be known worldwide, I
learned and talked about myself not
only in my mother tongue, Catalan, but
also in Spanish and English. All of the
services I offered were available in any
of these languages, through three
different versions of the web portal.
I walked through the rest of my
childhood this way. Between 2004 and
2005, new services, and new releases
of the previous services, were
developed and the number of
metadata providers and WMS
increased. The principles of the SDI
spread, and both institutional support
and the number of collaborating
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for the involvement of academic
institutions.
For the first time, a system of
performance indexes was used to
evaluate me. Its main purpose was
to monitor the accomplishment of
the IDEC’s goals.
The IDEC collaborated with other
regional SDI’s.
The IDEC participated in a new
European project to create geoprocessing services.
Some IDEC-based mash-up projects
were implemented by public
institutions.
IDEC started to be seen as a
reference in Europe.
they consolidated my existence; I was
no longer a mere initiative, but a living,
active, institutionalized and
consolidated project, which had had
been legally recognized and became a
tool for governance.
It should be noted that I opened that
period with a new version of MetaD,
v.3, with new data fields and improved
usability, and also implementing the
ISO 19139 standard.
The creation and public release of
various geo-processing services
(geocoding, transforming UTM to
geographic coordinates and vice versa,
transforming pixel coordinates to UTM,
etc.) was also significant. These new
services responded to the aim of
constantly creating new, useful and
practical tools for the users of my
resources. Using them, they could not
only view and download information
but also begin to manipulate the data.
In those days, I had 55 users and more
than 1,300 uses.
In addition to this list, I also want to
mention in this preamble the final
statistical results of my early activity
(2006):
Number of metadata records:
- Metadata in Catalan
- Metadata in Spanish
- Metadata in English
- Total number
Number of producers:
- Public institutions
- Private organizations
- Total number
20.302
20.235
16.513
57.050
Additionally, I increased my educational
and informative activities and my
presence at national and international
events. IDEC was becoming a leader.
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The following years, 2007 and 2008,
were fruitful in innovation,
participation and new services,
accelerating the activities started in
2006. Youth is an interesting, restless
and exciting time, when everything
seems fascinating. I was ready to
experiment, and I sought recognition
for my hard work.
Map layers:
163
(85 layers provided by 23 municipalities)
Downloads:
Web Coverage Service (WCS) in
1.362
Geography Markup Language (GML) 415
GML Catalonia
475
I think this brief presentation of results
and circumstances depicts the paths I
took that year, which were already
explored and operative. They might not
have made for a complete change, but
Now they know... and study me!
In 2007, I was studied by the INSPIRE
Unit of the JRC, responsible for the
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INSPIRE Directive. Implementing that
Directive involved assessing the extent
to which its development entailed
benefits for member states. The impact
of GI technologies has always been an
understudied subject, with little
research and few concrete results on
the profitability of investments. This
lack of references led the JRC to
prepare a proposal for analysis. It was
centered on studying the impact on
small areas that would give some clear
results, in spite of using the (few)
previous assumption-based studies,
which were rather theoretical and
difficult to verify. They decided to focus
their attention on the European regions
where SDI’s implementation was more
advanced. To do this, they published an
international offer to perform an
economic, social and political study in
some European regions. This study had
to be conducted by entities or
organizations not responsible for SDIs,
such as universities or research centers.
Thus, I encouraged the Centre de
Política de Sòl i Valoracions of the
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
(UPC) to submit a proposal to the JRC
offer. I was aware that I was likely to be
the chosen study area. I was already
well-known, and my continuous
progress and numerous achievements
had been acknowledged. That made
me a valuable case for study. In the
end, I was chosen to receive and
execute the JRC’s order in front of the
other two options presented thanks to
a good methodological proposal
presented by the UPC dealing with my
situation, context and results and
identifying known users of my
resources.
today, it remains a benchmark
document, not so much for its quality
as the fact that it’s the only one of its
kind developed to date.
The conclusions of the study were
brilliant, as they showed a clear
economic impact of the existence and
use of the resources I manage, and
were not received with indifference.
There were those who took these
conclusions for granted from the
beginning as the expected outcome. On
the other hand, others kept refuting
them, claiming that the scientific
methodology was poor and the results
exaggerated. About the whole
controversy, I can only say that the
results were not at all exaggerated, as
they were derived from the fact that
my resources are an instrument of
productivity, as demonstrated in the
usage cases described as examples in
the study. The productivity gain can be
assimilated, for example, to the
reduced cost and time required to
write this text with a word processor
compared to writing it by hand. This
initial change from handwork to the
use of technologically-derived tools is
immense and time-saving, and
consequently productivity-enhancing.
Over time, the intensity of the change
decreases, but the consequences of
passing from handwork to the use of IT
are perfectly clear, and, in my opinion,
cannot be disputed. This is precisely
what the study revealed after analyzing
what happened in certain local entities
that had begun to use my resources.
… And then INSPIRE arrived
The most significant event of this
period was probably the
implementation of the INSPIRE
Directive, translated in Catalonia into a
The details of the final study report are
available to anyone interested on both
the IDEC and INSPIRE websites. Even
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parallel directive through the approval
of Pla Cartogràfic de Catalunya (PCC)
and the establishment of the Comissió
de Coordinació Cartogràfica de
Catalunya and its respective
subcommittees. These regulations
permitted a rational, consistent and
long-term approach to various aspects
of the GI, under the guidelines for
strategies and methodologies provided
by the Directive.
Balearic Islands , Andorra, Italy, Greece,
Ecuador, Colombia, etc.
The catalog continued to change (see
photo album). It was adapted to
contain information about the life cycle
of metadata and from the Registre
Oficial de Cartografia. A new interface
was created for the Registre. It was also
prepared to contain service metadata,
at first with a non-standard profile. By
the end of 2008, 176 metadata services
had been provided by 47 suppliers.
That year, the accessions to the IDEC
catalog were about 5,000 (80% in
Catalan, 15% in Spanish and 5% in
English), not considering accession to
the Registre as direct. It was proven
that the catalog had become a useful
tool for many users. The number of
metadata providers reached a hundred
and they were mainly local institutions
(2,500 metadata), universities (4,500
records) and the ICC (9,000 records).
I have been working with this
committee, to whom I report regularly
and occasionally submit specific
proposals, such as the profiles for
metadata or data-sharing policies.
As for my objectives, however, the
most significant landmark was the
creation, by legal mandate, of the
Registre Oficial de Cartografia (official
cartography register), a tool of the PCC.
This register is currently supported by
the IDEC catalogue and required, as it
still does today, a set of important
adaptations to meet its objectives. This
makes me feel much more useful, as
my resources are being reused for
other purposes, at a cost infinitely
lower than starting from scratch. But I
also recognize that it means an
additional effort, as the permanent
maintenance and enhancement leads
me to overlook other aspects that
require my attention.
Further, within the activities of the
IDE Univers project, mention must be
made of the creation, of an open
application to connect catalogs
(CatalogConnector). This program at
last allowed distributed access to
several catalogs of metadata from
different suppliers, with the only
condition being that they meet
appropriate standards. Thus, it was
possible and easy to connect to
catalogs from Catalan municipalities or
from other regional IDE's, offering the
user a range of interesting possibilities.
Reforms and adaptations
Concerning the rest of all my
commitments, the activity remained
intense, even frantic, in those days. The
software MetaD had new releases,
v.3.0.4 and v.3.0.5. By late 2008, the
total number of downloads reached
1,500 and the product was used, aside
from Catalonia, in Andalusia, the
And participation of local entities
as well
The sectoral SDI initiative IDE Local
deserves special attention. As already
mentioned, it started in 2006,
promoted by and in collaboration with
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the consortium AOC (Open
Administration of Catalonia). Its
development in subsequent years was
remarkable, and it even generated a
new sub-initiative, IDE PlanUrb,
promoting the on-line publication of
municipal urban planning. To allow this,
certain economic resources and full
technical support were offered to data
providers in case preexistent
information was not suitable for
publication. A user-customizable urbanlayer viewer was also developed.
The IDEC viewer continued its
evolution, providing access to more
than 2,000 geoinformation layers from
a hundred suppliers.
By the end of 2008, IDE Local had
reached the participation of 260
municipalities, which were using the
resources offered by IDEC, mainly the
customized viewer. About a hundred
other local authorities were committed
to the publication of their data and the
creation of the related metadata. At
that time, the total amount of records
was 7,000, the number of active WMS
services was 128 and the number of
published layers reached 1,700.
I kept on growing through this stage of
my youth, between 2009 and 2010,
although there were certain changes
that could be highlighted. I began to
ask myself some questions and have
new concerns that would mark my
course into maturity.
Meanwhile, the IDE Univers project,
completed in late 2008, brought to my
collaborative network over 5,000
metadata and 1,500 new viewable
layers, accessible via WMS through 105
services, created by the 13 university
departments involved. This was a key
achievement.
Problems to be understood. A few
thoughts
I would say that 2009 started with
several questions. “What is an SDI?”,
“Who am I?”, “Am I like the others?”,
“What does it mean?” However, these
questions were not new. The
definitions of a viewer, a geoportal, a
web application, a Virtual Globe… had
always been confusing; everything
seemed to be the same thing.
However, the most interesting and
significant point of this initiative was
the progressive building of a platform
containing resources for local entities.
These resources included fully
customizable applications, which at
that time included a viewer customizer
(the most widely-used tool), an object
editor, a metadata catalog customizer,
a postal address geocoder and a
password manager. Additionally, an
initial application to allow maintenance
and database updating, the beginning
of something much bigger, was also
provided by the local corporation,
Localret. It was a WFS-T technologybased application that permitted local
entities to directly update the
databases located in the WMS of the
organization.
Those questions are meaningful. SDIs
have become a world of bewilderment.
I see many initiatives and projects that
call themselves SDI, just like me, but
who do not share my goals, my
methods, my strategies or my policies.
Even the requirements they respond to
diverge from mine. The outfit looks
identical, but beneath the clothes,
things are different. Although that does
not concern me directly, I don’t think
it’s good. We need to reach an
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agreement on what an SDI is and is not.
I have already made a proposal to this
effect, to no avail. The fact is that, even
today, it’s fashionable to be an SDI, and
every project claims to be an INSPIRE
SDI; there is a widespread obsession in
the area of GI in "being" INSPIRE and
"being" an SDI.
can see initiatives that require
development and changes to their
approaches. They are satisfied (and
deceived) by their life and existence
simply because no one discusses their
DNA. All of this makes it difficult to
analyze our evolution as a species,
which faces an increasingly acute risk of
stagnation, on a long-term basis. As I
said, this does not directly concern me,
and I only wish to express these
thoughts. It’s not my intention to get
involved in a crusade in defense of the
fundamental spirit. That’s all.
A passage from my “secret diary”…
By the end of 2009, the European
project ESDI+ recognized me as one of
the top 10 European sub-national SDIs,
after a public call for applications and a
few conferences in different countries
where potential candidacies were
submitted. The winner of the contest
was to be chosen among the 10 preselected candidates at the final event.
However, the jury declined to make a
decision, as the candidates included
many different types of SDIs, all of
them valid and deserving of the award.
Actually, as I remember, there were a
few SDIs with web applications,
including some GIS viewers with web
applications. Others were applications
restricted to a few members and not
usable by the public, without a catalog
or standard services, or SDIs that were
merely web viewers with a single
source of information, without a
distributed information network, and
similar products. We belonged to a
different species, but no one wished to
discourage any of these initiatives.
Things have remained unchanged until
now, mixing entities developed
following the principles and orthodox
definitions of SDI projects with other
initiatives having nothing or little to do
with them. Thus, there is a lingering,
false perception that there are a
multitude of SDIs, that they are a
universal, ever-increasing
phenomenon. In fact, the truth is that I
Who uses me?
Aside from that, it was a time that
remained productive, as I have already
said. The number of participants,
providers of information and metadata,
users and new applications based on
my resources increased. I continued
improving my style and appearance,
with a new design of the Geoportal,
making it more modern and usable,
giving the viewer better capabilities
and functionalities, featuring more
information sections on my website,
etc. However, I must confess my lack of
“marketing” ability to make myself
known. I don’t think I’m the only one;
other SDI’s also face the same
problems. We are aware of this, not
only because we believe it ourselves,
but also because most of those who
discover us are happily surprised and
wonder why we aren’t better known
and thus more widely used and
considered. The stigma of being an
"infrastructure", perceived as
something intended to do other things,
but nothing on its own, is minimizing
and paralyzing. The magic word
"marketing" often comes out in
conversations with colleagues, but I
have not yet found any “Google-style”
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product useful as a flag to make us
widely known. Maybe that is just not
our role; this is not for us. I don’t know,
but I’ll think more about it, when
possible. I’m not worried about
growing; we are definitely doing that,
as I have already said. But I would like
this growth to be higher and faster.
Indeed, I’m making efforts to be more
easily usable and reachable.
launched a collaborative project
between the Ajuntament de Barcelona
(city council), the Port de Barcelona
(local harbor) and the ICC. The purpose
was to share cartographic databases,
simplify information exchange among
them, and update the ICC’s 1:5000 base
map with the permanently-updating
base map of the Port de Barcelona
(with a working scale of 1:500). I want
to explain this project in detail because
it demonstrated the viability, though it
was not without effort and difficulty, of
connecting systems and automated
processes. It made it possible to save a
lot of time, and through collaboration,
achieved higher quality information.
Thanks to this project, the Port de
Barcelona can now directly access the
WFS of the Ajuntament de Barcelona
and download or update the mapping
for the urban area where their facilities
are located whenever they want,
making unnecessary the annual digital
data transfer and the subsequent
process of uploading the data in the
Port de Barcelona GIS environment.
Meanwhile, the Ajuntament de
Barcelona is also allowed to connect to
the port GIS to detect, and transfer to
their own system the updates made by
the Port. Geographic objects have the
same resolution (1: 500) in both
institutions. Finally, the ICC uses a data
mining process to capture at will any
change to the port mapping, processes
the captured objects (through
geometric and semantic
transformations), and stores them in a
database of observations to be
included, once revised, in the 1:5,000
topographic database.
I don’t want to be repetitive, with
another list of the numerical results of
my activity (access, metadata,
downloads, views, etc.) to justify the
previous assertion about the
incremental progress in almost all
aspects of my business. I’ll reserve the
details for the next section. Instead, I
want to delve further into certain
activities that, although they cannot be
quantified, exemplify my progress.
Progressing...
First of all, I must mention the comingof-age of IDE Litoral Geoportal, with the
contribution of one of the institutions
with the greatest credit in this area. We
agreed that I would maintain the
technological infrastructure (web,
Geoportal, viewer, etc.), while he took
in and managed the contents. The
arrangement benefits both of us, and
maintains the principle of
specialization, where each party
assumes the tasks at which they have
the most expertise, as well as the
principle of public resources reuse and
sharing.
Secondly, I want to state that I have
always striven to implement specific
applications based on what I am, which
can be summarized as
“interoperability". Thus, I’m happy to
remember that during that period, we
The same system is now being tested
and applied for maintenance of the
1:1,000 street map database, managed
by ICC from the updates made in the
13
databases administered by several
municipalities.
comparison with the (relative)
efficiency of traditional search engines
was pointed out. Thus, I worked hard to
make its use easier and more intuitive. I
tried to shorten the response delay of
the catalog until it was as fast as a
search engine. I simplified query
interfaces. I indexed the contents of
metadata records, etc. After that, all it
took was to type a toponym or word in
a plain-text window to start an efficient
search and obtain results. I also
included this searching window in my
viewer, so that the user could
incorporate into the viewer new
information discovered through the
catalog without leaving the work
session. Furthermore, I wanted to
export this utility to other viewers and
applications. I also needed to
incorporate semantic processes, but
that had to wait a while. Up to that
point, I was satisfied with what I was
offering. Of course, some people
longed for the metadata records to be
displayed in Google, but I tried this
option and found it impractical. So,
there was no choice but to rely on the
catalog and constantly improve it.
Self- control
Another remarkable accomplishment
was the development of a system of
indexes to measure the degree of
fulfillment of my already-established
goals. They were evidence of my
approach to maturity: I was able to
evaluate and correct myself. I initially
applied this system between 2006 and
2009. Given its obvious usefulness and
interest, I was asked to create a new
generation of indexes for the following
years of my life: 2010 to 2013. Anyone
interested in learning more about this
point, as well as some others I have
mentioned, should take a look at my
facility, the Geoportal, where they will
find a more detailed description.
http://www.geoportalidec.cat/geoportal/eng/quees/evolucio/
The catalog
I always thought about the catalog as
my “cover letter”. It’s the cornerstone
on which all my services rely, since the
first interest of an SDI user is to know
that a particular product exists, to
know where to find it and how to
access it (view, download). That’s what
the catalog makes possible.
We need more organization as we
grow. Monitoring my system
Over time, I gradually built a network of
servers with spatial information. They
gave me my present shape and
condition: I’m now an interoperable
and distributed information system. My
muscles are the hundreds of physical
servers containing almost five hundred
services and several thousand
geoinformation layers. In order to grow
I needed to coordinate my movements,
to prevent the failure of any of my
muscles. Otherwise, I would not be able
to assure a response to the requests.
However, the catalog had been the
least intuitive, amusing and userfriendly of all my components. I was
criticized for that, and I did everything I
could to improve it.
The catalog was the best tool of the
SDI, but also the most misunderstood
and criticized. Essentially, the
(supposed) inefficiency of the catalog in
14
exclusively contain data and services;
there are other types of geospatial
resources I must include. I’ll talk more
about them later on.
Once all of my WMS services were
inventoried and cataloged, it was
mandatory to monitor their functioning
continuously. If necessary, I had to
repair any damaged component to
ensure that the entire distributed
network would operate as if it was a
centralized system, giving proper
responses to the users. To that
purpose, an application to monitor my
components was developed. The
application warned whenever
something went wrong or did not work
and sent a message to the responsible
component, so that it was aware of the
malfunctioning and able to fix it. But I
also started to do other things. From
that moment, I periodically informed
each provider (component, in the
terminology used) of any problems
they had as well as the number of
accesses to their WMS, at least through
my access tools (I cannot monitor those
not going through my client viewer).
This way, providers realize to what
extent their information is appreciated
by users, impelling them to behave
consequently and keep their service
functioning properly.
V.
My maturity: close to my
tenth birthday
I think my maturity began in 2011,
almost without me realizing it. Maybe I
should let others judge it, anyway. The
reason for this attempt to explain my
existence up to today is the excitement
I feel when thinking that I’m one of
many pieces helping to improve society
and the institutions I belong to.
It’s been a long time, 10 years, since my
birth. In celebration of my achievement
of full maturity it’s time to look back
and evaluate my progress. Nowadays,
we’re in a different period, one of
constant change, and I want to keep
offering services and resources that can
contribute to the social and
technological development of my
country. I apologize for this emotional
note, but the occasion calls for it.
Towards an extension of my goals: An
SDI for geospatial resources (sensors,
PRG)
As I have previously done, let me
present here a final summary of the
achievements, accomplishments,
efforts and thoughts I have
accumulated during my life. They might
reflect my ability to play the role I
previously mentioned. This summary is
both an exercise of evaluation and an
exercise of humility, so that I can be
judged. Also, I cannot forget that I owe
my existence to the care and
participation of many partners. I am
who I am thanks to many others who
wished to be me. My achievements
have been my only nourishment, and
2010. I could feel myself reaching
maturity. I did not come to this
conclusion simply due to the passage of
time. My behavior, without completely
diverging from what was expected for
that stage of my life, was beyond what I
had planned.
I can now advance the conclusion that
makes me see it this way: I’m currently
turning into a Geoinformation
Resources Infrastructure. I’ll no longer
15
will continue to be so in the future.
Even my failures have largely
contributed to sustain me (I’ll also talk
about them in this final chapter). I don’t
exist as an independent entity, I
depend on all of the other entities, and
in a way, and I’m them. It was not
difficult for me to understand this, I
understood it from the beginning, and
still believe it deeply.
But let’s stop rambling; I’ll now get on
with the presentation of statistical
results, as previously announced:
Still rising: SDI activity data and results
16
Catalan local entities participation in the project
I have reached a critical mass, things
are working reasonably well, and all
the statistics are improving and
growing.... What more can I ask for?
Data Usage: In a survey of 100 visitors Geoportal (2008/2009) Total visitors: 90.
17
Uses, extension, visibility... is it
worthwhile?
allowing them access to heterogeneous
information that, although described in
metadata, may not be suitable for their
intended use, without them noticing?
What indirect effects, if any, am I
having on organizations and on interadministrative relationships?
At maturity, there is usually a tendency
to look back on the past, not only to
remember good times but also to
evaluate and compare our actual
experience with “what if...” scenarios.
One also becomes more critical,
perhaps even a bit skeptical. It’s a time
when you must preserve your appeal
(usability) while continuing to target
new goals to keep you active and
motivated. We are pursued by the
persistent question of whether
everything we have done or are
currently doing has been, or still is,
worthwhile. There are good and bad
days, though most of them are good.
Getting old involves some sadness and
nostalgia that we can only overcome
with excitement about whatever the
future will bring.
Those are, of course, wide-scope
questions that lack an immediate and
clear answer. However, I guess they are
also the product of maturity, whose
effects I described above:
It could all be summarized in a few
questions: Am I useful? If I just
disappeared, would there be any
consequences? Would anyone miss
me?
I want to plan my future starting from
these simple and profound questions.
Otherwise I would be condemned to
disappear.
Now, I’ll answer whether it was
worthwhile. Have my existences or
actions improved my environment a
bit? Have they benefited anyone? What
extent? And from a more negative
perspective: have I been an obstruction
for anything? Have I hurt anyone?
I wonder if I’m as good as I sometimes
think. Why am I not more widely used?
Why are there a lot of people I cannot
reach? Why do some of them not even
know me? Do I get my offer wrong, or
take for granted a non-existent
demand?
Are SDI dead? The INSPIRE obsession
So far, the process followed in
developing the infrastructure has
started with the appreciation of
potential advantages of on-line data
sharing. Thus, initiatives to encourage
geodata providers to allow others to
access their data are promoted. This
involves an effort to inventory and
catalog the resources, to create
promotion strategies and develop tools
to use the resources.
This process has been strongly
influenced by these aspects, taking
them for its purpose. This means that
most efforts have been focused on
simply using the Internet platform to
connect and make usable, within a
distributed structure, the existing
information resources from multiple
Furthermore, I keep asking myself
several questions to which I have no
answer: Why am I always compared
with Google? Am I a broad-audience
tool or "simply" a professional-oriented
infrastructure? Why am I obsessed with
justifying myself from an economic
point of view? Am I misleading users by
18
public and private organizations. The
emphasis has been, and still is, on the
supply, and not the use of resources,
with the consequent lack of
effectiveness.
INSPIRE metadata, INSPIRE services,
INSPIRE model, etc. The apparent
efforts and capabilities of the legions of
public workers from many agencies
have turned to activities that are, in my
opinion, ineffective: conferences,
seminars, meetings, working groups
and similar events, in order to analyze,
adapt, prepare and plan INSPIRE
implementation, of whose meaning and
result, incidentally, almost nobody has
a clear idea. Actually, I can understand
that. It’s much easier to meet, speak,
write and perform similar activities
than to depend on oneself, or to fight
for a project, the SDI, whose final result
depends on the never-guaranteed
participation of many partners.
Achieving this goal, participation,
demands a constant state of stress for
the SDI’s responsible development
body (in the case it exists and is
accredited, since in many cases “SDI” is
just a fashionable term applied to other
titles, such as GIS services, mapping
areas or many others).
Of course, before infrastructure can be
used, it must be made available.
However, possibly due to the lack of
reference examples, this first phase
consumes the activities of the centers
of the SDI’s. They concern themselves
with providing data sources, catalogs,
displays, etc.., but somehow neglect or
ignore the consequences of this
availability and the potential benefits of
the full utilization of these resources.
But this is not the only current problem
of the SDI’s. In my opinion, the most
important problem is that we are an
endangered species. Indeed, I cannot
easily recognize other members of my
species (see "A Passage from my Secret
Diary").
I note that INSPIRE, which at first was
received as a great opportunity to
strengthen SDI initiatives throughout
Europe, is causing an irrational passion.
It has led to the abandonment of many
of those initiatives for a supposed
implementation of the Directive in their
respective territories. INSPIRE intended
to promote SDI's, to promote the
participation of all organizations that
can provide their assets to the
infrastructure, to advance in the
practical issues of data, system,
department or regional
interoperability, to agree on the
application of standards, to avoid
duplication of efforts, etc. Instead,
everyone is talking about INSPIRE and
obsessing over it. Now the only
important thing is "being INSPIRE":
In general, there is not a shared
perception of having massive network
participation, of being an actual
infrastructure (web application
development is more highly regarded
than construction of infrastructure), of
creating common projects, etc.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that
I express my concern about our
survival. But this is something we will
see in time. For now, I’m concerned
about my future, something I deserve
and I rely on.
19
VI.
probably, crowd sourcing data and
tools.
The future
Geoinformation Resources Infrastructure: Data,
Services, Applications, Images, Sensor Data,
collaborative platforms, models, photos, etc.
From geographic information
infrastructure to georesources
infrastructure
I’m aware that, like any system or
organization, I’m condemned to
collapse, to extinction. I also know that
my only chance, and it won’t last
forever, is innovation. I must adapt to
the environment, mutate in the
appropriate direction, at least as far as I
know and am able to.
Innovate, innovate...
Interoperability, common working
platform, sensors, voluntary
information... those are the new
ingredients to use for new ideas and
projects.
Growing, no matter which direction, is
key. But why can’t growing be an
innovation in itself? Not everyone is
able grow at will, but I am. It’s a
solution that I’m implementing
successfully.
At first, SDIs were designed as tools for
discovery, access (viewing,
downloading) and processing of geoinformation and geo-services,
distributed in web servers from
different sources.
To do something different, more
specific, less massive but with a largely
technological and innovative approach,
is, perhaps, the quintessence of
innovation. I’m working on that, too.
But the truth is that there are some
data and services for which SDIs have
never been considered, although they
may also provide great value to the
discipline of GI: satellite images, aerial
photographs, historical maps, etc. In
the field of geo-services, the range of
final-user oriented applications (not
processes) to manipulate and use geoinformation are also a great incentive
for the use of data resources provided
by SDI to unqualified users.
Not everything is permitted (or how
to guide the user about quality)
In relation with these service
improvements, I think it’s essential that
I move from a situation where
"everything is permitted", in which I
aimed for maximum participation (as
many participants and as much
information as possible) to another
situation in which, without renouncing
that, I’ll be able to filter results by
quality, origin or other criteria. This will
probably be appreciated by the users.
I’m thinking, for example, about
creating an independent thematic SDI
for information provided by the
government. This information, arising
from the exercise of the government
Thus, beyond the geo-spatial data and
processing geo-services, there are
other sources of geo-information
(information and technology) that
should be welcomed in the
development of SDI’s, and which
should evolve into geo-information
resource infrastructures, including data
services, applications, images (Earth
observation, aerial photographs),
sensors, data access services, and,
20
duties and responsibilities, will be an
example of quality guarantee and
updating. Of course, the user should
keep the possibility to find thousands
of layers, from other sources, whose
quality and degree of updating, which
can be equally high, has to be assumed
or determined by the interested user.
The Administration website (for
example, a web portal for the Pla
Cartogràfic de Catalunya) should,
instead, be understood as the one
containing the most reliable and
updated information from public
entities.
time, although flexibility is, at least for
me, a virtue, there are some central
axes of my life’s road map that should
be kept clear.
My strategic guidelines should be based
on certain benchmarks:
Evolving from the accumulation of
resources to their dissemination
and use.
Creating a platform of
Geoinformation resources,
intended as a governance platform
and regarded both as source and
engine for my transformation. Its
mission is to improve accessibility,
increase the number of applications
and integrate new resources
(sensors, images).
Developing new thematic SDI and
Geoportals (WebSensors, images,
aerial photos, geology, cartography
officer, Inspire, and others).
Integrating new participative
technologies and crowd sourcing
resources.
Developing specific projects based
on interoperability.
Without a doubt, there will be other
options to ensure the correspondence
between what users are looking for and
what SDI providers can offer. This
remains an unexplored field, which, in
any case, cannot be explored without
the existence of a great amount of
data, that is, without the massive
presence of products currently
available through the IDEC website.
Coming years
I still have a long life to live. The fact
that I’m writing this autobiography
does not mean that I’m getting ready to
leave the scene. On the contrary, it has
been a useful incentive to target new
challenges, rethink some positions,
and, in particular, renew my
excitement about what’s going to
happen from now on. At the same
Who knows? I may have to extend this
biography in a few years...
Tempus fugit
21
PHOTO ALBUM
The Geoportal interface
2003
2010
22
The viewer interface
2003
2004
2006
2007
2008
2010
23
The Catalog interface
2004
2006
2008
2010
24
My Thematic Websites
Geoportal for sensors (2010)
Geolocal (Local SDI v.2, 2010)
Geoportal for IDE Univers (2008)
Geoportal for Earth Observation SDI
(2011)
Geoportal Ifor DE Litoral (v.2, 2010)
Tool’s menu of the PRG
25