[thredds] service types in THREDDS Catalog

• To: caron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: [thredds] service types in THREDDS Catalog
• From: Jeff deLaBeaujardiere <Jeff.deLaBeaujardiere@xxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:51:34 -0400

John C. & Ben D. (CCing THREDDS mailing list, but it will probably bounce as 
I'm not a member)-

The THREDDS catalog accepts the following OGC service types:
         <xsd:enumeration value="WMS"/>
         <xsd:enumeration value="WFS"/>
         <xsd:enumeration value="WCS"/>
(ref. 
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/THREDDS/tech/catalog/InvCatalogSpec.html#serviceTypes).

I have a couple of questions:

(1) How could we get OGC SOS (Sensor Observation Service) added to that list?

(2) What does the Catalog do when it encounters an OGC service type? Is the 
granularity of the Catalog only at the service level, or does it actually 
catalog the data holdings from the service?

Regarding #2, I would think that useful behavior would be to:
(a) issue the GetCapabilities request and get back the list of map layers 
(WMS), features (WFS), coverages (WCS) or observation offerings (SOS) available 
from that server.
(b) be able to construct request URLs for GetMap (WMS), GetFeature (WFS), 
GetCoverage (WCS) and GetObservation (SOS) using sensible defaults for some of 
the parameters.
(c) when displaying search results, show a list of URLs like those in #b to 
allow the user to click through. It is up to the user to be able to interpret 
the result image, binary or XML data.

These questions are arising because the IOOS (Integrated Ocean Observing 
System) is in need of a catalog, and it might be that THREDDS would be a 
possible solution (our service types include DAP+WCS via TDS, WMS and SOS).

Regards,
Jeff DLB

--
Jeff de La Beaujardière, PhD
Senior Systems Architect, Data Integration Framework
Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Program Office
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
1100 Wayne Ave #1225, Silver Spring MD 20910 USA
+1 301 427 2427

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