Minutes of GeoSciML SWG Meeting - Tucson, Sunday 29 June 2014

Membership

• Ollie Raymond announced resignation as chair as of the end of this meeting. Call for nominations is out.

Recap of decisions from last teleconference

• v4 conceptual model will be slightly changed from v3.2, but not much
• v4 implementation will be based on new v4 conceptual model, not v3.2 model
• OGC documentation rule - need to have as many conformance classes as requirements classes
  • but can have many requirements per requirement class
  • keeps documentation as simple as possible
• Metadata link from GeologicFeature is to "Any" (byReference). ie, should not be constrained to MD_Metadata.
  • (see Monday minutes for further metadata decisions)

Organisation of v4 implementation packages

• Nomenclature
  • Decision - we will keep "GeoSciML Portrayal" name (not "Level 0")
    • add specimen and observation site classes and publish as GeoSciML -Portrayal v2.1
  • Decision - we will call the "Level1" app schema "GeoSciML-Basic"
    • we must get final agreement at this meeting about what is included in the "Basic" app schema
  • Decision - we will call the full complex app schema "GeoSciML-Extension"
• Borehole
  • Decision to keep it as a separate app schema
• Laboratory Analysis
  • Decision to keep it as a separate app schema
• Geologic Time
  • Decision to keep it as a separate app schema
• The UML that we are editing at Tucson is the implementation specification UML
• Decision: Need to create a UML version of the truly conceptual v4 model.
  • This UML model will be:
    • the v3.2 model UML, with the following ammendments
      1. minus any artifacts that were included in v3.2 purely for the purpose of XSD implementation
      2. plus any of the minor conceptual additions/changes that are made for v4 at Tucson

Inspire

• Inspire will require EU surveys to deliver "Inspire" schema web services, with Inspire URI's for terminology (exact matches for GeoSciML terms)
• Need a transformer between GeoSciML and Inspire services? (more discussion later)

Geology-Basic - use cases and requirements

• GeomorphologicFeature
  • Decision: Need to add a GeomorphologicFeatureView class in GeoSciML -Portrayal (eg, INSPIRE use case)
  • Decision: Move GeomorphologicFeature to GeoSciML -Basic
• GeologicRelation
  • Decision: In GeoSciML -Basic, implement direct associations from GeologicUnit to GeologicEvent , and from GeolmorphologicFeature to GeologicUnit
  • Geologic relation conceptual model in v3.2 is fine conceptually, but is unneccessarily complicated for implementation
    • Decision: Move the GeologicRelation package into GeoSciML -Extension
    • Decision: Remove GeologicRelation subtypes
    • Decision: use direct relation links in GeoSciML -Basic
• MappedFeature and MappedInterval
  • Do we need to move implementation of MappedFeature out of GeoSciML -Basic into its own app schema so that it is truly re-usable by other communities (eg, soil and groundwater communities) without having the baggage of GeoSciML -Basic?
    • Decision: No. Other communities could use GeoSciML -Basic:MappedFeature as a UML "interface" for implementing their own MappedFeature equivalents
  • Discussion ensued about use of discrete coverages and mapped intervals in boreholes. Eric said GWML has dropped the use of MappedInterval and is only using discrete coverages to deliver downhole geological logs.
  • Inspire use MappedIntervals in their borehole model. Need to keep in GeoSciML v4
    • Decision: Remove specialisation link between MappedInterval and MappedFeature. This removes the dependency of the Borehole app schema on the GeoSciML -Basic schema (ie, allows Borehole to operate independently of GeoSciML -Basic).
    • Decision: Add only those relevant MappedFeature attributes to MappedInterval (ie, observationMethod, mappingFrame)
  • Need to add a method for identifying more than one geological log for a borehole (ie, identify a collection of mapped intervals). Conceptully we could add a "Interval Collection" class, but this would break the Inspire model.
    • Decision: add a "Collection Identifer" attribute on MappedInterval
  • ObservationMethod - Decision: make it voidable so that you can deliver data with unknown values without having "unknown" in the vocabulary, and it maps to Inspire's needs.
• GeologicFeature /FeatureClassifier
  • Decision: change to a swe:Category so that we can deliver a codespace and a value (e.g., a lexicon identifier and a value identifier). This will also satisfy the Inspire requirement for a "thematic classification" of GeologicFeatures.
• GeologicUnit /purpose and EarthMaterial /purpose - comment from John that users are not populating "purpose" correctly.
  • Decision: 1. Need to improve the scope notes to more plain English with examples. 2 Change default for geologic units to TypicalNorm.
• Decision: Add numericAgeRange to GeoSciMLBasic.
• Decision: Delete RockMaterialDetails and move all its contents to EarthMaterialDetails package
• There are different ways required for encoding GeologicUnit parent unit and child unit in v3.2.
  • Decision: genericize the GeologicUnitPart class to "GeologicUnitHierarchy" to enable delivery of parent units and child units using the same association method.

Presentations by SWG members showing examples of use of GeoSciML (and ERML, GWML, ISO19139)

• AuScope Portal ( development site) in Australia
  • Ollie presented use of GeoSciML (v2) and ERML (v1) to deliver boreholes and mineral occurrences. Architecture of linked web services (WMS + complex WFS, or portrayal WFS + complex WFS).
  • The portal demonstrates performance problems in trying to render complex WFS. Now want to only use WMS or Portrayal WFS to render a dataset, but use a linked WFS for querying the data.
  • Also demonstrated linking of WMS + CSW to portray seismic survey lines then to download linked files which are described in a linked CSW service. Example of using content negotiation to request non-default versions of a service (e.g., http://www.ga.gov.au/metadata-gateway/metadata/record/gcat_69460 returns HTML as default, but the Portal requests the XML version - http://www.ga.gov.au/metadata-gateway/metadata/record/gcat_69460/xml)
• Canada Groundwater Information Network
  • Eric demonstrated the GIN portal, similar to AuScope Portal using WMS for map data rendering and WFS for querying.
  • Using Deegree and Java mediator to map non-standard services from Canadian provinces to GroundwaterML.
• Italy/Slovenia environmental services for Inspire
  • Carlo demonstrated WFS and WPS services and highlighted problems of differences between GeoSciMLv3.2 and the more simplified Inspire schema, meaning that the same data must be delivered in using different XML for GeoSciML and Inspire services.
• EarthServer
  • John demonstrated EU project to deliver large coverage datasets using WCS / WCPS
  • showed 3D model of surficial material geological surfaces, using GeoSciML to describe the surfaces
  • references GeoSciML in the header of the WCS. Then uses GeoSciML within the metadata Extension element of the WCS to describe the surfaces.
  • can then write xWCPS queries (Rasdaman) to query the WCS for GeoSciML attributes and WCS attributes (e.g., geological and spatial query)
  • Example of EarthServer request: