3.3. Software

Last modified by Wai-Tim Ng on 2019/11/13 09:26

Index

  • Application Programming Interface
  • Geographic Information System
  • Geo-server
  • Jupyter notebook
  • Python
  • QGIS
  • WCS
  • WMS
An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of subroutine definitions, protocols, and tools for building application software. In general terms, it is a set of clearly defined methods of communication between various software components. A good API makes it easier to develop a computer program by providing all the building blocks, which are then put together by the programmer. An API may be for a web-based system, operating system, database system, computer hardware, or software library.
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a system designed to integrate, store, edit, analyze, share, and display geographic or spatial data. GIS applications are tools that allow users to create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data in maps, and present the results of all these operations. Geographic information science is the science underlying geographic concepts, applications, and systems.
GeoServer is a Java-based software server that allows users to view and edit geospatial data. Using open standards set forth by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), GeoServer allows for great flexibility in map creation and data sharing.
The Jupyter Notebook is an open-source web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and narrative text. Uses include: data cleaning and transformation, numerical simulation, statistical modeling, data visualization, machine learning, and much more. The IPython Notebook is now known as the Jupyter Notebook. It is an interactive computational environment, in which you can combine code execution, rich text, mathematics, plots and rich media.
Python is an interpreted high-level programming language for general-purpose programming, with a design philosophy that emphasizes code readability, notably using significant whitespace. It provides constructs that enable clear programming on both small and large scales. Python features a dynamic type system and automatic memory management. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including object-oriented, imperative, functional and procedural, and has a large and comprehensive standard library. In addition, Python is available for many operating systems.
QGIS (previously known as Quantum GIS) is a free and open-source cross-platform desktop GIS application allowing users to analyze and edit spatial information, in addition to composing and exporting graphical maps. QGIS supports both raster and vector layers. Multiple data formats are supported such as: shapefiles, coverages, personal geodatabases, dxf, MapInfo, PostGIS, and other formats. Web services, including Web Map Service and Web Feature Service, are also supported to allow use of data from external sources.
A Web Coverage Service (WCS) is an Open Geospatial Consortium interface standard offering multi-dimensional coverage data for access over the Internet. WCS Core specifies a core set of requirements that a WCS implementation must fulfill. A WCS provides access to coverage data in forms that are useful for client-side rendering, as input into scientific models, and for other clients.
A Web Map Service (WMS) is a standard protocol developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium in 1999 for serving georeferenced map images over the Internet. WMS provides a simple HTTP interface for requesting geo-registered map images from one or more distributed geospatial databases. A WMS request defines the geographic layer(s) and area of interest to be processed. The response to the request is one or more geo-registered map images (returned as JPEG, PNG, etc) that can be displayed in a browser application. The interface also supports the ability to specify whether the returned images should be transparent so that layers from multiple servers can be combined or not.