Geospatial metadata
Encyclopedia
Geospatial metadata is a type of metadata
that is applicable to objects that have an explicit or implicit geographic
extent, in other words, are associated with some position on the surface of the Globe
. Such objects may be stored in a geographic information system
(GIS) or may simply be documents, datasets, images or other objects, services, or related items that exist in some other native environment but whose features may be appropriate to describe in a (geographic) metadata catalogue (may also be known as a data directory, data inventory, etc.).
"Geographic Information - Metadata" from ISO/TC 211
, the current "best practice" standard for geospatial metadata, does not in fact provide a definition of geospatial (or geographic) metadata; however, uses the following wording in its "scope" section:
"This International Standard provides information about the identification, the extent, the quality, the spatial and temporal schema, spatial reference, and distribution of digital geographic data."
A little further, it is stated: "Though this International Standard is applicable to digital data, its principles can be extended to many other forms of geographic data such as maps, charts, and textual documents as well as non-geographic data."
The U.S. FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee) describes (geospatial) metadata as follows:
"A metadata record is a file of information, usually presented as an XML document, which captures the basic characteristics of a data or information resource. It represents the who, what, when, where, why and how of the resource. Geospatial metadata are used to document geographic digital resources such as Geographic Information System (GIS) files, geospatial databases, and earth imagery. A geospatial metadata record includes core library catalog elements such as Title, Abstract, and Publication Data; geographic elements such as Geographic Extent and Projection Information; and database elements such as Attribute Label Definitions and Attribute Domain Values."
's "DIF" metadata format was developed during an Earth Science and Applications Data Systems Workshop in 1987, and formally approved for adoption in 1988. Similarly, the U.S. FGDC developed its geospatial metadata standard over the period 1992-1994. The Spatial Information Council of Australia and New Zealand (ANZLIC), a combined body representing spatial data interests in Australia and New Zealand, released version 1 of its "metadata guidelines" in 1996. ISO/TC 211
undertook the task of harmonizing the range of formal and de facto standards over the approximate period 1999-2002, resulting in the release of ISO 19115 "Geographic Information - Metadata" in 2003. individual countries, communities of practice, agencies, etc. have started re-casting their previously-used metadata standards as "profiles" or recommended subsets of ISO 19115, optionally with the inclusion of additional metadata elements as formal extensions to the ISO standard. The growth in popularity of Internet
technologies and data formats, such as Extensible Markup Language
(XML), during the 1990s led to the development of mechanisms for exchanging geographic metadata on the Web
. In 2004, the Open Geospatial Consortium
released the current version (3.1) of Geography Markup Language
(GML), an XML grammar for expressing geospatial features and corresponding metadata. With the growth of the Semantic Web
in the 2000s, the geospatial community has begun to develop ontologies
for representing semantic geospatial metadata. Some examples include the Hydrology and Administrative ontologies developed by the Ordnance Survey
in the United Kingdom
.
's ArcGIS
Desktop, Autodesk
's AutoCAD Map 3D 2008 and Intergraph
's GeoMedia
support geospatial metadata extensively.
GeoNetwork opensource is a comprehensive Free and Open Source Software
solution to manage and publish geospatial metadata and services based on international metadata and catalog standards. The software is part of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
's software stack.
GeoCat Bridge allows to edit, validate and directly publish metadata from ArcGIS
Desktop to GeoNetwork (and generic CSW catalogs) and publishes data as map services on GeoServer. Several metadata profiles are supported.
CATMDEdit
terraCatalog
ArcCatalog
ArcGIS Server Portal
GeoNetwork opensource
IME
M3CAT MetaD
MetaGenie
Parcs Canada Metadata Editor
Mapit/CADit
NOKIS Editor
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
that is applicable to objects that have an explicit or implicit geographic
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
extent, in other words, are associated with some position on the surface of the Globe
Globe
A globe is a three-dimensional scale model of Earth or other spheroid celestial body such as a planet, star, or moon...
. Such objects may be stored in a geographic information system
Geographic Information System
A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...
(GIS) or may simply be documents, datasets, images or other objects, services, or related items that exist in some other native environment but whose features may be appropriate to describe in a (geographic) metadata catalogue (may also be known as a data directory, data inventory, etc.).
Definition
ISO 19115ISO 19115
ISO 19115 "Geographic Information - Metadata" is a standard of the International Organization for Standardization . It is a component of the series of ISO 191xx standards for Geospatial metadata. ISO 19115 defines how to describe geographical information and associated services, including...
"Geographic Information - Metadata" from ISO/TC 211
ISO/TC 211
ISO/TC 211 is a standard technical committee formed within ISO, tasked with covering the areas of digital geographic information and geomatics. It is responsible for preparation of a series of International Standards and Technical Specifications numbered in the range starting at 19101...
, the current "best practice" standard for geospatial metadata, does not in fact provide a definition of geospatial (or geographic) metadata; however, uses the following wording in its "scope" section:
"This International Standard provides information about the identification, the extent, the quality, the spatial and temporal schema, spatial reference, and distribution of digital geographic data."
A little further, it is stated: "Though this International Standard is applicable to digital data, its principles can be extended to many other forms of geographic data such as maps, charts, and textual documents as well as non-geographic data."
The U.S. FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee) describes (geospatial) metadata as follows:
"A metadata record is a file of information, usually presented as an XML document, which captures the basic characteristics of a data or information resource. It represents the who, what, when, where, why and how of the resource. Geospatial metadata are used to document geographic digital resources such as Geographic Information System (GIS) files, geospatial databases, and earth imagery. A geospatial metadata record includes core library catalog elements such as Title, Abstract, and Publication Data; geographic elements such as Geographic Extent and Projection Information; and database elements such as Attribute Label Definitions and Attribute Domain Values."
History
The growing appreciation of the value of geospatial metadata through the 1980s and 1990s led to the development of a number of initiatives to collect metadata according to a variety of formats either within agencies, communities of practice, or countries/groups of countries. For example, NASANASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's "DIF" metadata format was developed during an Earth Science and Applications Data Systems Workshop in 1987, and formally approved for adoption in 1988. Similarly, the U.S. FGDC developed its geospatial metadata standard over the period 1992-1994. The Spatial Information Council of Australia and New Zealand (ANZLIC), a combined body representing spatial data interests in Australia and New Zealand, released version 1 of its "metadata guidelines" in 1996. ISO/TC 211
ISO/TC 211
ISO/TC 211 is a standard technical committee formed within ISO, tasked with covering the areas of digital geographic information and geomatics. It is responsible for preparation of a series of International Standards and Technical Specifications numbered in the range starting at 19101...
undertook the task of harmonizing the range of formal and de facto standards over the approximate period 1999-2002, resulting in the release of ISO 19115 "Geographic Information - Metadata" in 2003. individual countries, communities of practice, agencies, etc. have started re-casting their previously-used metadata standards as "profiles" or recommended subsets of ISO 19115, optionally with the inclusion of additional metadata elements as formal extensions to the ISO standard. The growth in popularity of Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
technologies and data formats, such as Extensible Markup Language
Extensible Markup Language
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
(XML), during the 1990s led to the development of mechanisms for exchanging geographic metadata on the Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. In 2004, the Open Geospatial Consortium
Open Geospatial Consortium
The Open Geospatial Consortium , an international voluntary consensus standards organization, originated in 1994. In the OGC, more than 400 commercial, governmental, nonprofit and research organizations worldwide collaborate in a consensus process encouraging development and implementation of open...
released the current version (3.1) of Geography Markup Language
Geography Markup Language
The Geography Markup Language is the XML grammar defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium to express geographical features. GML serves as a modeling language for geographic systems as well as an open interchange format for geographic transactions on the Internet...
(GML), an XML grammar for expressing geospatial features and corresponding metadata. With the growth of the Semantic Web
Semantic Web
The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
in the 2000s, the geospatial community has begun to develop ontologies
Ontology (computer science)
In computer science and information science, an ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships between those concepts. It can be used to reason about the entities within that domain and may be used to describe the domain.In theory, an ontology is...
for representing semantic geospatial metadata. Some examples include the Hydrology and Administrative ontologies developed by the Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
ISO 19115: international metadata standard for geographic information
ISO 19115 is a standard of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It is a component of the series of ISO 191xx standards for Geospatial metadata. ISO 19115 defines how to describe geographical information and associated services, including contents, spatial-temporal purchases, data quality, access and rights to use. The standard defines more than 400 meta data elements, 20 core elements.ISO 19139 Geographic information Metadata XML schema implementation
ISO 19139 provides the XML implementation schema for ISO 19115 specifying the metadata record format and may be used to describe, validate, and exchange geospatial metadata prepared in XML.Metadata directories (metadata catalogues, data directories)
(need discussion of, and subsections on GCMD, FGDC metadata gateway, ASDD, European and Canadian initiatives, etc. etc.)- GCMD - Global Change Master Directory's goal is to enable users to locate and obtain access to Earth science data sets and services relevant to global change and Earth science research. The GCMD database holds more than 20,000 descriptions of Earth science data sets and services covering all aspects of Earth and environmental sciences.
- Go-Geo - JISC-funded project between EDINAEDINAEDINA is a UK-based data centre , which provides data applications delivered over the Internet and aimed primarily at Higher Education staff and students in the United Kingdom....
(Data Library, University of Edinburgh) and the UK Data ArchiveUK Data ArchiveThe UK Data Archive is a national centre of expertise in data archiving in the United Kingdom . It houses the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the UK....
(University of Essex). The portal allows for the discovery of geographic data and related resources within and beyond the HE and FE community rom over 90 providers.
Geospatial metadata tools
There are many commercial GIS or geospatial products that support metadata viewing and editing on GIS resources. For example, ESRIESRI
Esri is a software development and services company providing Geographic Information System software and geodatabase management applications. The headquarters of Esri is in Redlands, California....
's ArcGIS
ArcGIS
ArcGIS is a suite consisting of a group of geographic information system software products produced by Esri.ArcGIS is a system for working with maps and geographic information...
Desktop, Autodesk
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...
's AutoCAD Map 3D 2008 and Intergraph
Intergraph
Intergraph Corporation is an American software development and services company. It provides enterprise engineering and geospatially powered software to businesses, governments, and organizations around the world. Intergraph operates through two divisions: Process, Power & Marine and Security,...
's GeoMedia
GeoMedia
GeoMedia is the technology, suite of software components in Intergraph Corporation's geographic information system and family of software products that include: GeoMedia Objects, GeoMedia Viewer , GeoMedia, GeoMedia Professional, GeoMedia WebMap, GeoMedia WebMap Professional and others...
support geospatial metadata extensively.
GeoNetwork opensource is a comprehensive Free and Open Source Software
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
solution to manage and publish geospatial metadata and services based on international metadata and catalog standards. The software is part of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
Open Source Geospatial Foundation
The Open Source Geospatial Foundation , is a non-profit non-governmental organization whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open geospatial technologies and data. The foundation was formed in February 2006 to provide financial, organizational and legal support to...
's software stack.
GeoCat Bridge allows to edit, validate and directly publish metadata from ArcGIS
ArcGIS
ArcGIS is a suite consisting of a group of geographic information system software products produced by Esri.ArcGIS is a system for working with maps and geographic information...
Desktop to GeoNetwork (and generic CSW catalogs) and publishes data as map services on GeoServer. Several metadata profiles are supported.
CATMDEdit
terraCatalog
ArcCatalog
ArcGIS Server Portal
GeoNetwork opensource
IME
M3CAT MetaD
MetaGenie
Parcs Canada Metadata Editor
Mapit/CADit
NOKIS Editor
External links
- FGDC metadata page
- Global Change Master Directory(GCMD)
- Geospatial Exploitation of Motion Imagery is a geospatially aware and integrated Intelligent Video Surveillance (IVS) software system targeted at real-time and forensic video analytic and mining applications that require low-resolution detection, tracking, and classification of moving objects (people and vehicles) in outdoor, wide-area scenes.
- ISO 19115:2003 Geographic information -- Metadata
- Geographic information -- Metadata -- XML schema implementation