From CKAN

This page documents the Geospatial features available in CKAN and how to add geographic information to your datasets.

Contents 1 Metadata Conventions 2 Geo-enabling your datasets 2.1 Spatial Query 2.2 Dataset Extent Map 3 Previewing geospatial resources 3.1 WMS Previewing

Metadata Conventions

Over time some conventions have emerged regarding storing geospatial information on datasets:

• spatial-text: Textual representation of the extent / location of the package
• spatial: GeoJSON_ representation of the extent of the package (Polygon or Point)
• spatial-uri: Linked Data URI representing the place name

For example:

• spatial-text: United Kingdom
• spatial: { "type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [ [ [0.50, 49.74],[0.5, 59.25], [-6.88, 59.25], [-6.88, 49.74], [0.50, 49.74] ] ] }
• spatial-uri: http://www.geonames.org/2635167

or:

• spatial-text: Matsushima
• spatial: { "type": "Point", "coordinates": [ 38.36, 141.07] }
• spatial-uri: http://www.geonames.org/2111964

Use of these conventions when storing information in CKAN means that your material will easily integrate with any extensions or functionality built into CKAN, like for instance the automatic geo-indexing of your package (see below).

Geo-enabling your datasets

To be able to use the geospatial capabilities of CKAN, you need to enable the spatial_query plugin of the ckanext-spatial extension (Check the README for requirements and installation).

This extension adds support for geographic extents for datasets, creating a package_extent table that stores the provided in a geometry type column (PostGIS is used as the backend and GeoAlchemy as the spatial library). CKAN supports different projections when creating this table, but it is recommended to use the default one (WGS 84 Latitude / Longitude - EPSG:4326).

In order to get a dataset geometry imported into this table, an special extra must be defined, with its key named spatial (above). The value of this extra must be a valid GeoJSON geometry, for example:

 {"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[2.05827, 49.8625],[2.05827, 55.7447], [-6.41736, 55.7447], [-6.41736, 49.8625], [2.05827, 49.8625]]]}

or:

{ "type": "Point", "coordinates": [-3.145,53.078] }

Every time a dataset is created, updated or deleted, the extension will synchronize the information stored in this extra with the geometry table.

There is an handy list of GeoJSON strings ready to copy and paste for common countries and smaller administrative areas.

Spatial Query

The spatial_query plugin adds support for bounding box queries on the search API:

/api/2/search/package/geo?bbox=xmin,ymin,xmax,ymax

/api/2/search/package/geo?bbox=west,south,east,north

For instance:

/api/2/search/package/geo?bbox=-3.224605,53.950255,-3.024175,54.129025

Coordinates can be provided in a different projection system, if the spatial reference id is provided:

api/2/search/package/geo?bbox=320073,450947,332882,471045&crs=epsg:27700

These requests will return the usual search API output:

{
 "count": 2, 
 "results": ["bb22bf62-6816-4b5f-97ea-ca8e8a4ce60c", "5016d4fe-acd8-42f7-bb7a-e0fb50a5e1fc"]
}

Right now only bounding box searches are supported, but support for other types of search, as well as integration with the web frontend is planned.

Dataset Extent Map

If you want to show a small map showing the geographic coverage of your dataset you need to enable the spatial_query and dataset_extent_map plugins of the ckanext-spatial extension (Check the README for requirements and installation).

After enabling the plugin, if datasets contain a 'spatial' extra like the one described in the previous section, a map will be shown on the dataset details page.

The map is built using OpenLayers and shows cartography from the OpenStreeMap.

Note: Right now only geometries defined in WGS 84 Latitude / Longitude (EPSG:4326) projection are supported (e.g. the ones shown as example in this document).

Previewing geospatial resources

WMS Previewing

To use it, enable the wms_preview plugin of the ckanext-spatial extension.

Note: The WMS viewer is experimental and may be unstable.

The WMS (Web Map Service) previewing extension adds a light WMS client that allows to preview the different layers. When installed, if the package has a resource with format WMS it will show a View available WMS layer link in the 'Resources' section. Clicking on it will open a light map viewer with a map list of available layers:

The viewer is built with OpenLayers, and there is a lot of room for improvement:

• Base layer (we would need to handle different projections)
• Show legends (WMS GetLegendGraphic)
• Query layers (WMS GetFeatureInfo)
• Support other layer types (KML, GeoJson...)
• ...