6 Applications: Solutions for your end-users

This section is particularly useful for web designers, communications managers and agency decision makers. Technical approaches to application design will be of interest to Web Application managers and IT Support staff.

If serving data is the "input" to CANRI, applications are the "output". This Section takes a closer look at some of the best ways to use the power of the CANRI framework within your own organisational domain.

There is no practical limit to the variety of applications that CANRI can support. So we'll cover some of the basic issues associated with application design, and provide a snapshot of current CANRI applications to fuel your imagination.

This table provides links directly to the relevant software or component reference summaries.

6.1 Suggested steps in solution design

Designing an application means designing a solution: the "holistic" process of looking at a project from all perspectives and developing an optimised approach to getting results.

If you're concerned with applications, obviously you need to consider your organisation's policies and objectives, the actual data formats, the capabilities of the services involved, and of course, the user's needs.

Here's a rough list of pointers to get your discussions under way: We strongly recommend that before starting technical development you put together a solution design that addresses these factors.

Strategic concerns

Technical Evaluation

Create data products

If you are providing a non-map dataset, this requires typical information modelling exercise:

These points may involve quite complex issues. Remember, CANRI itself is simply a way of doing things. Generally, you'll find that most of this planning exercise is normal analysis which you are already familiar with. We bring it to your attention as a caution against thinking that CANRI provides ready-made answers in these areas.

6.2 Making use of existing data

In designing your application, you may wish to first check out what data is already available online. This bit of research may uncover surprising results. This research may uncover surprising results. At the time of writing, there were about 100 datasets served through the CANRI framework and more are coming online steadily. These datasets can be viewed through the NRA and other applications that make use of the CANRI catalog.

Additionally, there are about 5,000 listings in the NRDD. Searching these records may reveal just the right dataset for your application. Try contacting the data custodian and arrange for them to serve the data to the CANRI network. Alternatively, you may be able to negotiate access to the data and serve it yourself.

Key datasets

There is an enormous volume of geo-spatial information in the natural resources community, so it should come as no surprise if a particular dataset is not yet available online. The process of identifying priority datasets is a project in itself, the CANRI Data Framework project. This project involves consultation with a wide range of data custodians and stakeholders to come up with the most productive areas for investment of resources. As an example, here are some of the priority datasets identified through a thematic inventory on Salinity:

Through the project links above, you can review the current priorities along a number of inventory headings. Input to this process is gladly received: contact the Project Officer via the website for more discussion .

6.3 Making use of existing applications

One of the quickest ways to address your application requirements is to negotiate with an existing application provider. There are an increasing number of applications designed for this sort of arrangement, eg, the PartnerPlus program provides customisation and data hosting support for applications built through the WebMap Composer.

To evaluate the suitability of an existing application for your needs, ask yourself these questions:

A range of hosting services are provided through DLWC, including data and application hosting. Other agencies and organisations expect to be offering similar services in the future. For more information about shared applications or hosting services, contact the CANRI Business Development Manager.

Application	Managed by	Description	Allows hosting?	Distributed data?
CLIO	DLWC	Community Landcare Information Online Landcare groups	-	+
Coastal Atlas	DLWC	ACA NSW node of the Australian Coastal Atlas	-	+
FishFiles	NSW Fisheries	FishFiles Species Database	-	+
HITS	DLWC	Hunter Integrated Telemetry System A data gathering system that uses radio and telephone to automatically collect realtime data from remote environmental monitoring sites in the Hunter Valley and DLWC Hunter Region	-	-
NRA	DLWC	Natural Resources Atlas Viewing application for the NRDD. General-purpose discovery, display and query of natural resources data.	-	+
PartnerPlus	NCC NSW	PartnerPlus Service available to NCC member groups. Allows creation of map views, control over interface layout, and data-upload/hosting.	+	+
PlanConnect	PNSW	IPlan information network Enables users to access a wide range of local and state planning instruments as well as CANRI-listed datasets	-	+
PlantNet	RBG	NSWPlant, Plants@Risk, WeedAlert, WattleWeb New South Wales plant names, their distribution and their conservation status.	-	-
RIIS	DLWC	River Information Internet System Provides river water levels and flows, storage elevations, volumes and discharges from locations across New South Wales.	-	+
SoE Direct	NSW EPA	State of the Environment Reporting Provides online access to several important NSW EPA data resources, to assist Councils in preparing their own State of the Environment reports.	-	+
SPADE	DLWC	Soil Profile Attribute Data Environment Find and display soil profile information, get info on the soil profile points displayed on the map, and retrieve a report on the landform and soil at that site.	-	-
Streamwatch/ Waterwatch	Sydney Water	Community-driven local water quality database	-	+
Wildlife Atlas	NPWS	Atlas of NSW Wildlife Fauna dictionary	-	-

6.4 Application development: Roll-your-own

While it can be mind-bogglingly complicated to build your own high-end online mapping application, there are a number of ways to build very simple, fast applications that may just do the job with a minimum of fuss. We'll outline a couple of these as starters, but feel free to experiment. If you come up with something new, make sure to announce it on CANRI-Talk!

Simple JavaScript WMS Client

An example of a simple WMS client that could be inserted in to a HTML document can be found at the The University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center Site:

Map image only: Using Layers

This is a very simple trick to put a map on your website in about 15 minutes using nothing but a browser and a text editor (assuming you can change pages on your website!)

This approach only works for datasets that are available online through the CANRI catalog, and exploits the DHTML <layers> element to overlay images (note: <layers> are supported by later model Microsoft InternetExplorer browsers).

Connecting to the CANRI Catalog

For some applications, it's important to be able to query the CANRI Catalog. This is a reasonably challenging technical requirement, and not to be undertaken lightly. The CANRI technical staff maintain a help file that should be sufficient to get you started.

6.5 GeoTools

GeoTools is a free Java-based mapping toolkit that allows maps to be viewed interactively on web browsers without the need for dedicated server-side support. The project is open source and is covered by the LGPL.

6.6 MapBroker

Overview

MapBroker is a Java library that allows JSP-based middleware applications to access multiple sources of geographic data and render them into interactive maps within any end-user web application.

MapBroker provides a JavaScript and Java Application Programming Interface (API) that can be accessed from JSP (Java Server Pages) web pages.

How MapBroker is used

MapBroker is applied in situations where distributed data sources are to be combined in a single end-user interface. The central feature that MapBroker supports is the ability to query multiple, heterogenous data servers across the internet and combine their responses into a single map view.

A prime example of such an end-user application is the NRA, which allows users to browse and view datasets available in the NRDD via the CANRI Catalog. The user identifies datasets of interest in the NRDD and specifies viewing particulars via the NRA interface. All communication between the NRA interface, the Catalog and the distributed data sources is managed via the MapBroker.

6.7 WebMap Composer (WMC)

Overview

WebMap Composer (WMC) is a product developed and licenced by Social Change Online. A self-contained suite of middleware components and interface templates, the WMC allows application authors without technical skills to produce end-user interfaces and views on data and combine these into end-user viewing applications.

These applications run from your server (or from a hosting partner) and provide control over the interface branding. These applications can be launched from a normal web link, making it quite feasible to enhance your website with interactive mapping.

How WebMap Composer used

WebMap Composer has been used to rebuild the NRA application, support PlanningNSW's PlanConnect interface, and is at the core of the Nature Conservation Council's PartnerPlus project.

CANRI is considering the potential benefits of offering organisations the opportunity to licence the WebMap Composer at reduced rates.


Community Access to Natural Resources Information	...the power of shared information