2006-08-17T14:00:00Z,33.83,-78.48,-1,20
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• develop a google earth/kmz based visualization of a list of such rss type feeds similar to earlier google earth visualizations listed at http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/335650/an/0/page/1#335650 and http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/twiki_dmcc/bin/view/Main/ObsCatalog . Such visualizations could be developed in a generic way allowing different observations/unit of measurements combinations for varying geospatial communities.

• develop shapefile based derivations for traditional desktop based GIS users

• a pathing and filenaming convention could be used to support larger archival datasets. Any of the above more verbose xml or csv forms could be additionally zipped for compression/bandwidth needs.

CSV form

Since CSV (Comma Separated Value) is a simple and common way of passing data, here's a draft at a possible CSV type feed record. Platform elements are repeated with each observation record.

platformHandle,observation

<platformHandle>carocoops_SUN2_buoy</platformHandle>  
<observationType>sea_surface_temperature</observationType>
<dateTime>2006-08-17T14:00:00-00</dateTime> #ISO8601 time format GMT
<value>20<value>
<uom>celcius</uom>
<elev>-1</elev>

• • Elevation is referenced by the 'elev' tag (also borrow from georss) and has units of meters and a frame of reference as positive where this is height above the earth or ocean surface(sea level) and negative where this is depth below the earth or ocean surface(sea level). Elevation is listed with each observation.

WFS form

Since OGC WFS (Web Feature Service) has been useful in the past for GML tagging recordsets, here's a draft at a possible WFS type feed record. Platform elements are repeated with each observation record.

GML elements

<platformHandle>carocoops_SUN2_buoy</platformHandle>  
<observationType>sea_surface_temperature</observationType>
<dateTime>2006-08-17T14:00:00-00</dateTime> #ISO8601 time format GMT
<value>20<value>
<uom>celcius</uom>
<elev>-1</elev>

• Place rdf:ID tags in namespaces?

ObsRSS

• position
  • Latitude and longitude are represented in a georss style tag ( http://georss.org )which is a simplified version of gml. Latitude and longitude are representative for all observations listed with this platform or rss message.
  • Elevation is referenced by the 'elev' tag (also borrow from georss) and has units of meters and a frame of reference as positive where this is height above the earth or ocean surface(mean sea level) and negative where this is depth below the earth or ocean surface(mean sea level). Elevation is listed with each observation.

• time
  • use ISO8601 format in the 'dateTime' element listed with each observation including time zone to hour resolution

• observation description
  • an observation needs to be described in terms of its type such as sea surface temperature, air pressure, etc. , unit of measure (uom) and observed value.

• platform handle
  • we need a platform handle to display and to be used for mapping against other possibly duplicate data sources

Note in the below that xml namespace elements (xmlns) are given which further reference the list of valid element values and their definitions(such as http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/observation_types.xml which was created using the perl DBIx::XML_RDB package code example). These additional reference documents could be used to create further higher level mappings and ontologies and reused as reference sources for others additional data feeds.

The filename includes a reference to the platform handle, unique timestamp for the file creation date or latest obs and convention version.

Data feeds

Currently the latest observations from the Seacoos database (1000+ platforms, federal and institution level) are hourly provided as both:

kmz file for display in google earth
http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/gearth/latest_placemarks.kmz

Smaller bounding boxes, individual platforms and observations can be queried via examples of the REST oriented web service documented at
http://twiki.sura.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SoapliteSeacoos

Lately (September 2006) I've been wondering if the below xml rss type feeds might be more suitable to simple sharing of latest observation data from platforms. ObsRSS is shorthand for Observations RSS.

A common concern is collecting latest observations in near real-time from various platforms and many different entities are trying both to provide and consume these latest data via both the usual http/ascii/xml type feeds and web services/SOAP/REST type feeds.

In addition to a more complex query based web services model(SOAP or REST based) which can be time consuming/resource intensive to develop and maintain, what's needed for this simpler publishing/report issue is an rss type approach where there is agreement on the rss/xml format and methods for providing cross-organizational mapping for the content elements.

If existing data feeds were mapped by platform to a more community standard rss/xml type feed below once then the duplicated effort of understanding/mapping to the various individual feeds could be reduced.

Below are listed what I would consider the critical elements to achieving a useful rss type feed.

• position
  • Latitude and longitude are represented in a georss style tag which is a simplified version of gml. Latitude and longitude are representative for all observations listed with this platform or rss message.
  • Elevation is referenced by the 'elev' tag (also borrow from georss) and has units of meters and a frame of reference as positive where this is height above the earth or ocean surface(mean sea level) and negative where this is depth below the earth or ocean surface(mean sea level). Elevation is listed with each observation.

• time
  • use ISO8601 format in the 'dateTime' element listed with each observation including time zone to hour resolution

Minimal form

#filename convention like follows:
#<platform_handle>_<datetime=YYYYMMDDHHMM>_latest_obs_v1.xml
#carocoops_SUN2_buoy_200608171400_latest_obs_v1.xml
<platform xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss"
   xmlns:platforms="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/platforms.xml"   
   xmlns:observationTypes="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/observation_types.xml"   
   xmlns:uomTypes="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/uom_types.xml">
   <georss:point>33.83 -78.48</georss:point>
   <platforms:platformHandle>carocoops_SUN2_buoy</platforms:platformHandle>  
   <observation>
      <observationTypes:type>sea_surface_temperature</observationTypes:type>
      <dateTime>2006-08-17T14:00:00-00</dateTime> #ISO8601 time format GMT
      <value>20<value>
      <uomTypes:uom>celcius</uomTypes:uom>
      <elev>-1</elev>
   </observation>
   <observation>
      <observationTypes:type>air_pressure</observationTypes:type>
      <dateTime>2006-08-17T14:00:00-00</dateTime> #ISO8601 time format GMT
      <value>1016<value>
      <uomTypes:uom>millibar</uomTypes:uom>
      <elev>3</elev>
   </observation>
</platform>

Full form

#filename convention like follows:
#<platform_handle>_<datetime=YYYYMMDDHHMM>_latest_obs_v1.xml
#carocoops_SUN2_buoy_200608171400_latest_obs_v1.xml
<platform xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss"
   xmlns:organizations="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/organizations.xml"   
   xmlns:platformTypes="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/platform_types.xml"   
   xmlns:platforms="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/platforms.xml"   
   xmlns:observationTypes="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/observation_types.xml"   
   xmlns:uomTypes="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/uom_types.xml"   
   xmlns:qualityFlagTypes="http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/obsrss/quality_flag_types.xml">
   <georss:point>33.83 -78.48</georss:point>
   <organizations:organizationName>carocoops</organizations:organizationName>
   <platformName>SUN2</platformName>
   <platformTypes:platformType>buoy</platformTypes:platformType>
   <platforms:platformHandle>carocoops_SUN2_buoy</platforms:platformHandle>  
   <platformURL>http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/carocoops_website/buoy_detail.php?buoy=buoy6</platformURL>
   <observation>
      <observationTypes:type>sea_surface_temperature</observationTypes:type>
      <dateTime>2006-08-17T14:00:00-00</dateTime> #ISO8601 time format GMT
      <value>20<value>
      <uomTypes:uom>celcius</uomTypes:uom>
      <elev>-1</elev>
      <qualityFlagTypes:qualityFlag>3</qualityFlagTypes:qualityFlag>
      <dataURL>http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/carocoops_website/buoy_graph.php?buoy=buoy6&graph_type=temperature_surface</dataURL>
   </observation>
   <observation>
      <observationTypes:type>air_pressure</observationTypes:type>
      <dateTime>2006-08-17T14:00:00-00</dateTime> #ISO8601 time format GMT
      <value>1016<value>
      <uomTypes:uom>millibar</uomTypes:uom>
      <elev>3</elev>
      <qualityFlagTypes:qualityFlag>3</qualityFlagTypes:qualityFlag>
      <dataURL>http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/carocoops_website/buoy_graph.php?buoy=buoy6&graph_type=air_pressure</dataURL>
   </observation>
</platform>

Future development

• I could develop a google earth/kmz based visualization of a list of such rss type feeds similar to earlier google earth visualizations listed at http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/335650/an/0/page/1#335650 and http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/twiki_dmcc/bin/view/Main/ObsCatalog . Such visualizations could be developed in a generic way allowing different observations/unit of measurements combinations for varying geospatial communities.

• Please email me at jcothran[at]asg.sc.edu if interested in providing feedback on the above type latest observation rss type feed or something similar and if you would be interested in providing such feeds or are interested in visualizations/products derived from such feeds.

Other earlier and ongoing work

The above xml rss forms are related to and derive from earlier and ongoing work related to ocean observing system web services development documented at

http://twiki.sura.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/OosTechServiceDefinition
http://twiki.sura.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SoapliteSeacoos
http://twiki.sura.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/OOSTechSWE

Also at the relational database level I'm working to provide a generalized table schema which would be used to collect and share data/products from documented at

http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/twiki_dmcc/bin/view/Main/XeniaPackage

-- JeremyCothran - 07 Sep 2025