FOSS4G Europe

FOSS4GE 2024 | Navigate urban scenarios with MapStore 3D tools

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 12:41:13 GMT

This presentation focuses on the use of MapStore to navigate urban scenarios using its 3D tools and capabilities. Latest versions of MapStore include improvements and tools related to the exploration of 3D data such as Map Views, Styling, 3D Measurements, Annotations and more. Support for 3D Tiles and glTF models through the Cesium mapping library has also been greatly enhanced to provide support for more powerful integration.

Attendees will be presented with an overview of our work related to 3D data visualizations and a selection of use cases around the following topics: visualization of new projects for urban planning, relations between different levels of a city and descriptions of events inside a city. At the end of the presentation attendees will be able to use the presented workflows to replicate them on different urban scenarios using the 3D tools of the MapStore WebGIS application.

Lorenzo Natali
Stefano Bovio

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/TXRLMC/

Room: QFieldCloud (246) @ 04.07.2024 12:00:00

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#GeneralTrack
#UseCasesApplications

FOSS4GE 2024 | Towards automation of river water surface detection

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 12:36:18 GMT

It is well known that climate change impacts are increasingly affecting European territory, often in the shape of extreme natural events. Among those, in recent years, heat waves due to global warming contributed to the acceleration of drying process. Particularly, the Mediterranean areas are expected to face extraordinary hot summer and increasingly frequent drought events, which may clearly affect the population. As a partial confirmation of this forecast, in between 2022 and 2023 Southern Europe was affected by lasting drought conditions, which had several outcomes on the ecosystems. As an example, in Po River (the longest Italian water stream) the worst water scarcity of the past two centuries was recorded (Montanari et al., 2023). Experts agreed on the exceptionality of the phenomenon, stating nevertheless the repeatability of such events in near future (Bonaldo et al., 2022). Willing to face them, local authorities expressed the need of tools for monitoring the impacts of drought on rivers, so to be capable of promptly enacting countermeasures.
In this context, the authors partnered with Regione Lombardia for building a procedure oriented at the exploitation of Copernicus Sentinel-1 (SAR) and Sentinel-2 (optical) sensor fusion for water surface mapping, applied in the case study of Po River (Conversi et al., 2023), based on supervised classification of combined optical and SAR imagery. The current work will present an evolution of the proposed methodology, which includes a considerable effort towards the full automation of the process, a necessary step for making it user friendly for public administration.

The designed procedure, built in Google Earth Engine, is based on the combination of three images, namely the S-1 VV speckle filtered band (Level 1, GRD) and the spectral indices Sentinel Water Mask and NDWI derived from S-2 (Level 1-C, orthorectified). Input imagery is selected to ensure complete coverage of the area of interest, with mosaicking if necessary images coming from different dates, a reliable assumption considering that the drought is usually a slow phenomenon. The interval of time between images is anyway minimized by the code, depending on data quality and availability. Training polygons are drawn by photointerpretation and then fed to a Random Forest-based supervised classifier, jointly to the three aforementioned images. The outcome of the procedure is constituted by a map of water surface detected over the area of interest, complemented with an estimate of the extent in km2. Results are then validated and correlated with hydrometric records coming from the field, which corroborated the overall performance (Conversi et al., 2023).

This paper proposes an advancement in the methodology, aimed at enhancing its usability by non-expert users, so to set the base of the development of a tool that can be exploited by local stakeholders. An efficient automatic extraction of training samples, is achieved by randomly extracting the training set of pixels from a binary mask (water/non-water).
This water/non-water mask is derived by the combination of three sub-masks resulting from the automatic thresholding of the input imagery (VV, SWM, NDWI), obtained with the Bmax Otsu algorithm (Markert et al., 2020). The water/non water mask includes only the pixels which have the same behavior for all input images and along the reference period.
The thresholding procedure is automated using the concept of Otsu histogram-based algorithm for image segmentation. This methodology allows to define an optimal threshold value for distinguishing background and foreground objects. The inter-class variance is evaluated and the value that maximizes it is chosen, thus maximizing the separability among pixel classes as well (Otsu, 1979). A modified version of the algorithm, the Bmax Otsu, was exploited, which was originally developed for water detection through Sentinel-1. Otsu algorithm is indeed particularly effective in case of images characterized by a bimodal histogram of pixel values, while Bmax Otsu is more suitable in presence of multiple classes or complex backgrounds (Markert et al., 2020), which is the case for the application presented in this work. The Bmax Otsu is based on a checkerboard subdivision of the original image, on user-selected parameters. The maximum normalized Between-Class Variance (BCV) is evaluated in each cell of the checkerboard and sub-areas characterized by bimodality are selected for applying the Otsu algorithm, thus leading to the goal threshold value (Markert et al., 2020).
As mentioned, the outcomes of the Bmax Otsu procedure are exploited for extracting random training samples for the machine learning-based classification algorithm. The best classification performance is obtained with a number of pixels that ...

Stefano Conversi

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/CP3N7A/

Room: Omicum @ 04.07.2024 14:30:00

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FOSS4GE 2024 | Exploring the use of 3D tiles in QGIS - case Helsinki

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 12:30:20 GMT

The QGIS version 3.34 introduced support for Cesium 3D tiles. At the same time there is a growing number of 3D data published as 3D tiles. This is also true for the city of Helsinki, Finland, that has published diverse datasets as open data, including textured and untextured buildings, terrain data, and photogrammetry-derived mesh models.

Mobility Lab Helsinki is a test bed for smart mobility, which is a common effort between Forum Virium Helsinki and Business Helsinki. Mobility Lab Helsinki is running several agile pilot projects and one of them in the beginning of 2024 dealt with developing the mobility digital twin of Helsinki. We at Gispo conducted a pilot project that aimed to develop QGIS-based workflows for Helsinki to enhance the use of 3D data and 3D data production processes.

In this pilot we integrated 3D tile datasets into QGIS and thoroughly tested out the 3D tile features. One aspect of the project was to identify use cases within the organization of the city of Helsinki and to explore ways for them to benefit more from the 3D data available. By providing easier access to 3D data and facilitating integration with other spatial datasets, the pilot seeked to enable more comprehensive analysis and decision-making in urban planning.

We learned that with the new support for 3D tiles in QGIS, the accessibility of using such data is improved. With a growing enthusiasm around digital twins, we see that 3D tiles support in QGIS is a welcomed feature, though still in its infancy. We found that at the moment it is possible for organizations to use 3D tiles in QGIS, primarily for visualization purposes but also for rudimentary measuring. However, taking into account the wide spectrum of other features in QGIS, it is only a matter of time until we can see some spectacular applications where 3D tiles meet more traditional spatial data.

Timo Aarnio
Meri Malmari
Emil Ehnström

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/JGPJGX/

Room: QFieldCloud (246) @ 04.07.2024 11:30:00

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#GeneralTrack
#UseCasesApplications

FOSS4GE 2024 | Where is the free, very high-resolution imagery?

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 12:24:16 GMT

Massive Earth Observation imagery datasets are now available publicly and freely. However, free, very high-resolution imagery (less than 1m/pixel) is expensive and not easily accessible. Such imagery is particularly critical to aid disasters, but still, we are struggling to find and use it. Why is this the case? Where is very high-resolution imagery, and where is the one that enables us to create solutions freely to contribute to society?

Starting from the Türkiye & Syria Earthquake on February 6, 2023, I've contributed to OpenAerialMap (openaerialmap.org) by processing and uploading Maxar imagery for disasters, such as Morocco and Nepal.

I'd like to critically discuss the current state of VHR imagery and present my experience, challenges, and suggestions for improved availability in the context of disaster mapping. I want to touch upon the following topics:

Where is very high-resolution imagery?
How is it being used?
Why are they not free to use?
Still, where can we reach them?
Why do we need better access?

Batuhan Kavlak

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/JKKPQT/

Room: QFieldCloud (246) @ 05.07.2024 11:30:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#OpenData

FOSS4GE 2024 | Building the modern GIS Web Stack

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 12:18:36 GMT

Using the technologies:

Database - Postgres + postgis
Backend - Python + fastAPI
Frontend - React + maplibre
Deployment - Docker

We will delve into the cutting-edge landscape of Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) through the lens of a modern custom web stack. The backbone of our system lies in the backend, where Python's fastAPI takes center stage, providing a seamless and efficient foundation for handling geospatial data. From routing to authentication, fastAPI ensures optimal performance.

On the frontend, we embrace the power of React, creating a dynamic and interactive user interface. Maplibre, an open-source mapping library, is our choice for rendering stunning maps, delivering a captivating user experience. The combination of React and Maplibre transforms data into meaningful visualizations, making complex geospatial information easily accessible which can be further extended to native mobile apps seamlessly as well.

The heart of our GIS web stack is the robust database system, featuring PostgreSQL and its spatial extension, PostGIS. This powerful combination allows for efficient storage, retrieval, and analysis of geospatial data, unleashing the full potential of location-based insights. We will explore the rich ecosystem surrounding PostgreSQL and PostGIS, with extensions like mobilityDB, and uber h3 showcasing the versatility and extensibility they bring to the table.

Our entire GIS web stack is encapsulated in Docker containers to ensure seamless deployment and scalability. This containerization facilitates deployment on any cloud platform, providing flexibility and ease of management. We will guide you through the Dockerization process, empowering you to deploy your custom GIS solution effortlessly in the cloud.

Jashanpreet Singh

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/GKFH33/

Room: GEOCAT (301) @ 04.07.2024 17:30:00

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FOSS4GE 2024 | Disaster Management GIS in Action: Leveraging Open-Source Software for Rapid Response

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 12:12:45 GMT

In the face of natural disasters, response time is critical. Mapping and geospatial insights play a pivotal role in understanding the impact and coordinating efforts. This presentation will delve into the capabilities and benefits of open-source disaster management software, focusing on Disaster Ninja, an innovative tool developed by Kontur. This critical event management solution, now open-source, enhances situational awareness by visualizing mapping gaps and facilitating connections with local mappers for ground truth verification.

Disaster Ninja streamlines the preparation of mapping tasks, enabling emergency cartographers to work efficiently, often reducing task preparation from hours to minutes.

Our talk will explore how open-source tools like Disaster Ninja can empower disaster response efforts by providing actionable insights, demonstrating the tool's application in real-world scenarios, and discussing its development in collaboration with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT). We aim to foster the development of FOSS4G by offering our experiences and the capabilities of Disaster Ninja, to enhance collaboration, innovation, and the practical application of these resources during disaster events.

Polina Krukovich
Vasili Bondar

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/EKTDA9/

Room: QFieldCloud (246) @ 05.07.2024 12:00:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#StateOfSoftware

FOSS4GE 2024 | Leave no one behind - UNDP GeoHub. Spatial data visualization and analytics for ...

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 12:05:04 GMT

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development.

Recent advances in technology and information management have resulted in large quantities of data being available to support improved data driven decision making across the organization. In this context, UNDP has developed a corporate data strategy to accelerate its transformation into a data-driven organization. Geo-spatial data is included in this strategy and plays an important role in the organization. However, the large scale adoption and integration of geo-spatial data was obstructed in the past by issues related to data accessibility (silos located in various country offices), interoperability as well as sub-optimal hard and soft infrastructure or know-how.
All this issues have been addressed recently, when UNDP SGD integration team started developing GeoHub to provide geospatial data visualization and analytical tools to UNDP staff and policymakers.

UNDP GeoHub (https://geohub.data.undp.org/) is a repository of a wide array of data sets of the most recent time span available at your fingertips! It is a centralized ecosystem of geospatial data and services to support development work. It allows non-geospatial users to upload, search and visualize datasets, compute dynamic statistics and download the data. In addition, GeoHub provides a feature to create and share their maps with the community easily. Satellite imagery, spatial-temporal model generated data, as well as regular spatial datasets, can be streamed into various analytical tools to create new insights leveraged by policymakers and regular users.

Geohub ecosystem consists of sveltekit & maplibre based frontend web applications and various FOSS4G software on the backend side. PostgreSQL/PostGIS, titiler, pg_tileserv are deployed in Azure Kubernetes (AKS) to provide advanced visualization and analysis for users. All source code is published in GitHub repository (https://github.com/UNDP-Data/geohub) with an open-source license.

We have presented GeoHub at FOSS4G 2023 Prizren. We are going to update the latest state of GeoHub since we have developed a lot of new features and UI/UX improvements. The major changes since Kosovo are as follows.

Introduced a landing page to direct users to each page of GeoHub
Implemented social login (GitHub authentication and UN B2C authentication)
Data upload pipeline
User permission management for datasets and maps
UI improvement for data visualization
Raster analytical features (titiler algorithms)
Static image API (generate static map image from a saved Maplibre style)

Jin Igarashi

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/PNNVPJ/

Room: Omicum @ 05.07.2024 10:30:00

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#GeneralTrack
#UseCasesApplications

FOSS4GE 2024 | QGIS as a Tool in Planning Optical Fiber Networks

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:59:02 GMT

Planning an optical fiber network is a complex process. Early draft versions of the networks are usually used to give a rough cost estimation. As this process is already very work intensive, things are getting especially serious when construction is scheduled to start. Permission documents, digging permits and all kind of forms need to be submitted to local authorities.

As in many engineering projects, time is key. Whatever helps to simplify and automate work steps, is a big game changer. Especially the creation of permission documents and maps can be a very time consuming process. To create such documents, we have turned to QGIS and after an intensive (always ongoing) process of customization, we are now able to produce dozens of documents with just a few clicks.

In our talk we will show a real use case for real projects which are currently in the execution phase in Saxony/Germany. Possible was this development by a strong cooperation of Estonian Fiber OÜ (EST), aastrix GmbH (GER) and Yellow Arrow OÜ (EST).

Chris Nichterlein

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/QMDLXN/

Room: Omicum @ 05.07.2024 12:00:00

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#GeneralTrack
#UseCasesApplications

FOSS4GE 2024 | Unlocking Uralic Heritage and Diversity: URHIA's Open Data Journey in Spatial ...

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:52:06 GMT

The University of Turku's interdisciplinary collaboration spanning geographers, biologists, linguists, and archaeologists has yielded a rich tradition of studying language evolution and human diversity. Over 15 years, our efforts have culminated in the creation of the Uralic Historical Atlas (URHIA, meaning "brave" in Finnish dialect), a dynamic spatial platform that provides open access to spatial databases focusing on human diversity in Finland and Northern Eurasia. This platform emphasizes the commitment of the University of Turku to making data accessible that contributes to transparent science and effective collaboration for a wider range of insights and perspective
URHIA, built on open-source spatial infrastructure GeoNode by GeoSolutions and integrated into UTU's spatial infrastructure (https://geospatial.utu.fi/resources/utu-geospatial-data-service/), goes beyond being a conventional data repository. It is designed as an interactive spatial platform (https://sites.utu.fi/urhia/) for researchers and lay audiences. Currently hosting the Uralic Language Atlas and the Archaeological Artefact Atlas of Finland, URHIA transforms into a live data showroom, presenting thematic spatial datasets through interactive online maps. In addition to these achievements, the impact of other similar initiatives that use UTU's spatial infrastructure is noticeable worldwide, especially on those that aim to improve the skill of university students which provide more employment opportunities, build the capacity of university staff, promote open access to digital e-assets and improving student digital skills and competences.
This presentation delves into the development of the framework and sharing of groundbreaking new open data through an online spatial data platform, emphasizing platform development and data-specific challenges. The presentation showcases a) The Uralic Language Atlas (distribution of Uralic language speaker areas), an initiative digitized by the interdisciplinary BEDLAN (https://bedlan.net/) research team, and b) the Archaeological Artefact Atlas of Finland, an initiative from over 10-year effort of collaborative research groups to digitize Finnish archaeological artefacts, made available just in the end of 2023. The participatory design and user-centric principles adopted during the URKO project (2020-2022) laid the foundation for this inclusive approach. and c) a list of initiatives that use UTU's spatial infrastructure for digital skills development for Geospatial Employment
The first interactive map URHIA's Language maps, represents a significant leap in digital linguistics. In a landscape where extensive databases of geographical language distributions are often missing, URHIA stands out as a pioneering initiative. Developed collaboratively at the University of Turku, the Uralic Language Atlas provides a groundbreaking open dataset. The second showroom is a workflow in progress, the Archaeological Artefact Atlas of Finland. Presenting data from the Archaeological Artefact Database of Finland (AADA), this atlas provides comprehensive information on over 49,000 collection entries of Finnish archaeological materials. AADA represents a pioneering effort, being the first database of its kind in Finland and possibly globally. Its creation marks a milestone in the digitization and accessibility of archaeological data, setting the stage for similar initiatives worldwide. The third showroom is the list of initiatives with their process and cases that use UTU's spatial infrastructure for enhancing digital skills for geospatial employability.
URHIA has evolved into a dynamic tool that caters to diverse research needs through collaborative teamwork and a commitment to user-centric design. Highlighting the unique open dataset within URHIA, this presentation underscores the concept of following scientific FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles. The Uralic Language Atlas and the Archaeological Artefact Atlas of Finland exemplify the commitment to making data findable and accessible, contributing to the larger vision of transparent science and promoting effective collaboration, leading to a broader and more diverse range of insights and perspectives.

Meeli Roose
Msilikale Msilanga

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/9L8JGT/

Room: Omicum @ 05.07.2024 11:00:00

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#GeneralTrack
#OpenData

FOSS4GE 2024 | DuckDB with Geodata

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:45:35 GMT

DuckDB has established itself in the data science community as a lightweight tool for data analysis of all kinds. It now has an official extension that can work with geospatial data. In this talk we will introduce the basic features.

DuckDB can read data from various sources, such as files (CSV, JSON, ...), the Internet or other databases. The imported data can be combined and processed using SQL. The "spatial" extension of DuckDB now also supports spatial data types such as points, lines or polygons. In addition, the GEOS library integrated in the background provides geographic analysis functions such as area calculation, intersection or buffer calculation. GDAL is also integrated in the background and allows reading and writing of many other formats from the geographic world.

Jakob Miksch

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/KNBMGH/

Room: Omicum @ 05.07.2024 11:30:00

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#GeneralTrack
#StateOfSoftware

FOSS4GE 2024 | Geocint: Open Source Geospatial Data Processing Pipeline

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:40:03 GMT

For data-driven organizations, it is critical to have reliable ETL processes. As an open-source tool, Geocint can help organizations and individuals who work with geospatial data and need to process it efficiently.
Geocint is an ETL pipeline for processing geospatial data. At Kontur we have been using Geocint internally for a long time - to build the Kontur Population and Kontur Boundaries datasets. We also used it to prepare data for the Disaster Ninja app before deciding to make it reusable by other organizations in the GIS field.
We built the Geocint pipeline around PostgreSQL, PostGIS, and h3-pg (PostgreSQL bindings for H3). Thus, Geocint combines the powerful data processing features of PostgreSQL with the efficient geometric operations from PostGIS and the key benefits of using the H3 grid system, such as high-performance lookups and a compact storing format.

Andrew Valasiuk

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/HSH87N/

Room: GEOCAT (301) @ 05.07.2024 14:00:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#StateOfSoftware

FOSS4GE 2024 | Publishing INSPIRE and other rich data models in GeoServer made easy with Smart ...

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:34:59 GMT

This presentation will cover the support GeoServer provides to publish rich data models (complex features with nested properties and multiple-cardinality relationships), through OGC services and OGC API - Features, focusing on the recent Smart Data Loader and Features Templating extensions, covering in detail ongoing and planned work on GeoServer.

As far as the INSPIRE scenario is concerned, GeoServer has extensive support for implementing view and download services thanks to its core capabilities but also to a number of free and open-source extensions; undoubtedly the most well-known (and dreaded) extension is App-Schema, which can be used to publish complex data models and implement sophisticated download services for vector data.

We will also provide an overview of how those extensions are serving as a foundation for new approaches to publishing rich data models: publishing them directly from MongoDB, embracing the NoSQL nature of it, and supporting new output formats like JSON-LD which allows us to embed well-known semantics in our data.

Real-world use cases from the organizations that have selected GeoServer and GeoSolutions to support their use cases will be introduced to provide the attendees with references and lessons learned that could put them on the right path when adopting GeoServer.

Andrea Aime
Nuno Oliveira

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/CD9QVE/

Room: Destination Earth (Van46 ring) @ 05.07.2024 14:30:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#OpenStandardsAndInteroperabilityForGeospatial

FOSS4GE 2024 | State of STAC

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:26:20 GMT

The SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) specifications are a flexible language for describing geospatial information across domains and for a variety of use cases. This talk will present the current state of the specifications, which includes the core STAC specification and the API specification built on top of OGC APIs. The core specification is planned to release version 1.1 shortly after FOSS4G Europe and this talk is meant to guide you through the changes. This presentation also digs into additions to STAC extensions and the latest community developments. We survey the updates to the open-source STAC ecosystem, which includes software written in Python, JavaScript, and more.

Matthias Mohr

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/YQJFVK/

Room: Destination Earth (Van46 ring) @ 05.07.2024 14:00:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#OpenStandardsAndInteroperabilityForGeospatial

FOSS4GE 2024 | Using Nix to build and distribute a geospatial software

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:22:48 GMT

Nix is used to build the largest collection of software packages on a planet, including geospatial software maintained by Nix Geospatial Team. It is multi platform, runs on any Linux and even on a Mac. In addition, Nix provides full control of a dependency graph, can build reproducible, per-project isolated environments, container images, run services and provide many other features not found anywhere else.

I will demonstrate some very unique features of Nix, which can make a developer's or a user's life so much nicer and will present the arguments why we should seriously consider using this technology for a FOSS4G software.

This talk is follow up on my previous FOSS4G talk about features and potential benefits of using Nix technology stack for geospatial use cases.

Ivan Minčík - @imincik

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/AFTRTG/

Room: GEOCAT (301) @ 05.07.2024 14:30:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#StateOfSoftware

FOSS4GE 2024 | Improving interoperability between OpenDRIVE HD map data and GIS using GDAL

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:14:00 GMT

Our new vector driver for GDAL offers the possibility to convert highly detailed HD map data from the complex road description format ASAM OpenDRIVE into common geodata formats such as GeoPackage, GeoJSON, Shapefile, KML or spatial databases. Finally, this makes OpenDRIVE easily usable in established GIS applications.

Within the domains of automotive and transportation, highly detailed road network datasets (HD maps) emerged as a core component for development, testing, function validation and also for later production use. Applications such as autonomous driving, driving simulation and traffic simulation often rely on special engineering data formats, of which ASAM OpenDRIVE [1] evolved as an open industry standard. This domain-specific data model bundles mathematical, continuous track geometry modelling with all necessary topological links and semantic information from traffic-regulating infrastructure (signs and traffic lights).

OpenDRIVE's complexity makes data acquisition a sophisticated task, often financed by the automotive industry and conducted by third-party mobile mapping providers. Recently, governmental institutions have also shown increased interest in such data, particularly in the context of urban transport planning and road infrastructure maintenance. However, even though such OpenDRIVE data often covers the institutions' own urban space, it is often "inaccessible" because tool support for OpenDRIVE is mostly limited to expensive commercial software and - even worse - lacks integration into popular Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Our free software contribution [2] extends the common Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) [3] and transforms OpenDRIVE road elements into OGC Simple Features [4] which can be loaded and processed ad hoc by all commercial and free GIS tools! This way, OpenDRIVE data can directly be loaded in QGIS, for example, which involves less overhead than having to intermediately convert it to CityGML using r:trån [5] beforehand.

By bringing the domains of automotive engineering and GIS closer together, we hope to stimulate interdisciplinary knowledge transfer and the creation of an interconnected research community. With our open software extension, we empower public authorities and research institutions with easier access to highly-detailed road data, which might otherwise be limited to just industrial players. Vice versa, the (automotive) industry benefits from established tools and data provisioning services of the spatial data domain, with which it does normally not interact.

Based on our experience with extending GDAL, other domain-specific data formats such as railML, RoadXML and the NDS Open Lane Model could be made accessible for the greater audience of GIS users as well.

[1] ASAM OpenDRIVE: https://www.asam.net/standards/detail/opendrive/
[2] Git branch of OpenDRIVE driver: https://github.com/DLR-TS/gdal/tree/libopendrive
[3] GDAL: https://gdal.org
[4] OGC Simple Feature Access: https://www.ogc.org/standard/sfa/
[5] r:trån: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7702313

Michael Scholz

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/SD7SGV/

Room: Destination Earth (Van46 ring) @ 05.07.2024 15:00:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#OpenStandardsAndInteroperabilityForGeospatial

FOSS4GE 2024 | Vector Tiles: Spatial Selection with PyQGIS

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:09:48 GMT

As transmission operator (Austrian Power Grid) we need up to date information on parcels and land use during building projects. The Austrian data provider in this field (Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying - kataster.bev.gv.at) provides an open data vector tile cache with this information on a daily basis. The vector tile format is good for visualisation, but for the export of distinct multiple parcel-geometries, there is no out-of-box solution in QGIS so far.

We present a methodology of downloading data from vector tiles based on a defined spatial selection with PyQGIS. Based on a geometry (e.g., a power line) we are able to select the parcels of interest. One challenge is the fragmented provision of data by vector tiles. Using GeoPandas we combine the tiles into distinct geometries which can be postprocessed.

The result are precise parcels including attribute data and metadata. The challenge is to reduce the amount of data in the spatial selection process to find the parcels of interest.

Helene Steiner
Lukas Nebel

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/NHBPHL/

Room: LAStools (327) @ 05.07.2024 14:30:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#UseCasesApplications

FOSS4GE 2024 | Empowering Rapid Disaster Response with OpenAerialMap

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:02:59 GMT

In the face of disasters, timely access to accurate geospatial data is critical for effective response efforts. This presentation explores the pivotal role of OpenAerialMap (OAM) in enhancing open maps and facilitating swift disaster response. We delve into the evolution of OAM, from its inception to the latest advancements, highlighting its use as a comprehensive repository of openly licensed satellite and UAV imagery. The session will showcase OAM Mosaic Map's features. Join us to discover how OAM, through collaboration with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, is shaping the future of open maps and geospatial response in times of crisis.

Milvari Alieva

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/KBHC87/

Room: LAStools (327) @ 05.07.2024 14:00:00

#foss4ge2024
#GeneralTrack
#UseCasesApplications

FOSS4GE 2024 | Finnish National Geoportal Paikkatietoikkuna turns 15 years!

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 10:57:00 GMT

Finnish National Geoportal Paikkatietoikkuna was first launched in 2009 and is now the home of over 3000 open map layers from nearly 70 different data producers in Finland, and is used by 3 - 6 000 users every day. Its background is largely in the INSPIRE-directive, which expects the spatial data to be accessible, reusable and interoperable: the Geoportal functions as a national service for the data producers to demonstrate and display their open datasets to the public.

Paikkatietoikkuna is regularly referred to in social media, news articles, blogs as well as teaching materials in education sector, as it has become well known in the society. Today, Paikkatietoikkuna is essential for thousands of professionals in variety of different fields, such as in forestry and environmental fields. These people need in their daily work an easy to use map applications with national or local datasets for viewing and overlaying map layers for comparison, for creating their own map data for simple analysis or for embedding a map on their website without any programming skills.

Paikkatietoikkuna, soon after its birth, initiated what is now known as open source Oskari map framework (oskari.org), and today many other map applications are based on Oskari.

In this presentation you will hear how Paikkatietoikkuna gained its central role within Finnish spatial data infrastructure today.

Sini Pöytäniemi

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/K3AYAE/

Room: QFieldCloud (246) @ 05.07.2024 14:30:00

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FOSS4GE 2024 | Your Geoportal F***ing Sucks

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 10:44:45 GMT

Many national and regional governments have in the past few decades created GeoPortals to meet their obligations to provide citizen access to their spatial data. This spatial data is collected, in many cases, at tax payer expense. Indeed the EU (2024) says:

"""
The publication of data is driven by the belief that it brings enormous benefits to citizens, businesses, and public administrations, while at the same time enabling stronger co-operation across Europe. Open data can bring benefits in various fields, such as health, food security, education, climate, intelligent transport systems, and smart cities - and is considered "an essential resource for economic growth, job creation and societal progress".
"""

But even now nearly a quarter century after the introduction of the first Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards for interoperability there seems to be a wide spread failure to make use of OGC standards to provide access to the underlying data that is needed by citizens create economic growth.

This paper will detail the author's experiences with attempting to acquire spatial data and their observations of relatively inexperienced students trying to navigate some examples of geoportals. The paper will then make some suggestions to help data providers serve data with the modern methods and formats that users actually want, using open source tools such as GeoServer.

Ian Turton

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/P78AK7/

Room: QFieldCloud (246) @ 05.07.2024 14:00:00

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FOSS4GE 2024 | Spontaneous growth of the 'geocompx' FOSS4G community

FOSS4G Europe — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 10:35:42 GMT

In 2016 two early-career researchers met and discussed the lack of open-access materials related to spatial data analysis with vector and raster geo data in R. A few months later, they started writing a book together which, from the first commit onwards, was done in the open. The book source code was publicly available at GitHub, updated regularly, and reproduced on every commit by continuous integration. Due to this approach, it initially attracted several contributors, one of whom became an author. Writing the book using many FOSS tools allowed us to contribute suggestions, leading to dozens of improvements upstream. The first version of Geocomputation with R (abbreviated to 'geocompr') was completed and published in early 2019.

'Geocompr', started as a two-person book project. However, it not only attracted many readers, but also enabled online discussion through online platforms, such as GitHub and social media. In the last few years, the book has had a few hundred thousand readers online, gained a few official and community translations, and has been used in many academic courses and research papers. We also started working on its second edition and its sibling project: Geocomputation with Python.

It became clear that the 'geocompr' name was no longer appropriate for the more multilingual nature of the project, and we started using the 'geocompx' name. We hope it captures the essence of the project: eXchanging information about geocomputation, cross (X) pollination of ideas from one programming language to another, and the possibility of hosting additional content on geocomputation with (X) other languages.

Currently, the main entry point for this project is the https://geocompx.org website. It contains links to other books and materials and also hosts a blog with posts related to geocomputation, which is also open to guest writers. The 'geocompx' project is also a Discord server with discussions about various FOSS4G topics, from tools and methods to applications to solve real-life problems.

In this talk, we will share our experiences of writing an open access book, show the tools we use, and provide suggestions on how to start to contribute or create FOSS4G materials on your own.

Jakub Nowosad

https://talks.osgeo.org/foss4g-europe-2024/talk/HGHQGD/

Room: Destination Earth (Van46 ring) @ 05.07.2024 16:00:00

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