OWGIS

OWGIS interface

OWGIS (originally Open WebGIS) is an open source Java web application that builds easily configurable WebGIS sites by automatically writing HTML and JavaScript code. The WebGIS sites are configured by XML files that define which layers will be displayed on the maps as well as the texts to be used on the interface. This makes most of OWGIS users scientists in the oceanography, meteorology and climate fields. OWGIS's most notable features include animations, vertical profiles and vertical transects, various color palettes, dynamic maps, downloadable data, and multilingual interfaces.

OWGIS version 2.0 (latest version available) generates mobile interfaces based on HTML5 technology and can be used to create mobile applications. OWGIS can be downloaded and you can contribute to improve the code via github.

Features

The interfaces that creates OWGIS contain many features, the features available through OWGIS depend on the type of layer. The types of layers are divided into: vector layers; raster layers from GeoTIFF files (GeoTIFF layers); and raster layers served through ncWMS servers (ncWMS layers).

1. Identify features. Depending on the layers that are being visualized by the WebGIS site, you can access its data at any location by simple clicking on the map.
2. CQL Filtering. The interfaces built with OWGIS allows filtering the content using the Contextual Query Language.
3. Color palettes. When the main layer is being retrieved from a ncWMS server, OWGIS builds the necessary web content to allow the user selecting from the available color palettes on the server.
4. Vertical Profiles. For 3D data served through ncWMS servers, OWGIS makes the proper requests to generate vertical profile graphs.
5. Time Series. If your data varies on time, OWGIS takes advantage of the ncWMS servers and provides time series from the time range selected through calendars.
6. 3D View. 3D view using WebGL with the Open Source software Cesium.
7. Depth Selection. OWGIS builds a nice paginated window for selecting different z-axis of 3D layers.
8. Downloadable data. Just one click and any of your layers will be downloaded as a KML file, which can be visualized in other clients like Google Earth.
9. Streamlines. OWGIS can generate streamlines to visualize currents, winds, or any other vector field.
10. Transparency. Allows users to change the opacity of any main layer or optional layer.
11. Animations. Available for temporal data, the users can increase or decrease the speed of the animation, pause it, traverse the animation frame by frame, and download it to the user’s computers.

Architecture

OWGIS is contained in a web archive (WAR) file that can be deployed in a servlet container, such as Apache Tomcat. OWGIS generates the self-contained Web GIS sites. The code generated by OWGIS contain customized requests made to map servers as well as a personalized configuration of the OpenLayers library to display maps.

The source code in OWGIS version 2.0 is grouped in five general modules: model, business, servlets, messages, and tools.

• The model module stores a set of data structures containing all the layers obtained from the XML files as well as the menus.
• The servlets module contains all the servlets, which receive the new requests from the user and redirect each request to the proper method in the business module.
• The business module is in charge of reading the current user’s configuration to build the proper interface.
• The messages module contains the text, in multiple languages, that are displayed in the websites.
• And the tools module contains static functions used to create web content.

References

This article "OWGIS" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:OWGIS. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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