An online mapping portal is being developed to improve access to official geospatial open data from around Europe.
Not-for-profit organisation EuroGraphics – which represents official bodies including UK national mapping agency Ordnance Survey – is leading the Open European Location Services (Open ELS) project and has indicated it expects to deliver the portal in April.
Scottish geographic data sharing specialist thinkWhere is creating the user interface to give registered users access to the data.
The project has been co-financed by the European Commission and the EU Connecting Europe Facility, which provides targeted infrastructure investment to promote economic growth.
It is aimed at making it easier to find and re-use open geospatial information from official national sources, while recognising the contribution of public authorities responsible for mapping, cadastre – which defines the dimensions and locations of parcels of land – and land registries.
It is following the ‘publish-find-bind’ web services architecture that uses a broker between organisations publishing data and services and bodies or individuals who make requests for it.
Find-and-bind
thinkWhere is providing the ‘find and bind’ element, creating a catalogue of published data and services, then binding the requester to the provider. It is taking information from service and data providers under six themes – EuroGlobalMap, regional gazetteer, open cadastral, addresses, building and transport – to feed into the catalogue, and will use it with existing European Location Services technical components and open source technologies to develop the user interface.
The company’s chief executive, Alan Moore, said the project will help to remove barriers to the use of cross-border open data across Europe.
Image from thinkWhere
