beyond all things to all people: prototype specifics, please

[Chris]

PulseCamp was indeed interesting/stimulating/all of the above.

Now, back to reality. Let's talk about Uganda, and the other
prototype(s). I personally would like to focus on the geographic info
aspects, where I believe I can contribute the most. Are there in-
country government POCs that are coordinating the GIVAS efforts there
in Uganda?

I have good contacts in these global efforts:

www.fews.net
http://www.wfp.org/food-security
www.fivims.org
www.gmfs.info

and this regional group:

www.rcmrd.org

Chris

[Nicolas di Tada]

Chris,
From an architecture perspective what is that you'd like to see being done around geographic info in Pulse?

Let's try to articulate the goals so we can move in the right direction. From the top of my head:
1- Unify geographic info so that different organizations can use a complete set of the geo-knowledge of Uganda
2- Define protocols/standars for exchanging information
3- Create a straw-man architecture so that different GIS can interoperate and leverage each-other's strengths.
4- ....

[Dessalegn Mequanint]

I would like to add one thing on the goal beginning to develop, I don't know whether it is a protocol matter but I can see one thing that needs consideration.

The envisaged architecture needs to consider device heterogeneity in the sense that information exchange should be possible on a range of devices from mobile or hand held devices to desktop and other high end devices. Mobile or hand held devices are constrained in many respects among other things they have less display area, processing power... Thus, in the envisaged architecture it is good to think of a layer that is responsible for transcoding or adapting the information to be exchanged to the capacity of devices used. It could be stated as:

Defining an adaptation layer that enables information exchange across  a range of heterogeneous devices.

 
Once the goals are framed that would be good to think of a country which could be used as a testbed or prototype to prove the workability of the proposed architecture.

Regards,

Dessalegn M.

---

From: Nicolas di Tada <nic...@gmail.com>
To: unglobalpul...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, December 16, 2010 6:18:47 AM
Subject: Re: beyond all things to all people: prototype specifics, please

[Chris]

I would say:

a) OpenGIS has developed a pretty comprehensive architecture for
publish, discovery, and subscription to attributed data. For example,
see figure 2 of: http://www.fig.net/pub/fig_2002/JS4/JS4_percivall.pdf

b) Supposedly, the members of www.ungiwg.org have committed to adhere
to these standards.

c) Just doing inventory of existing spatial data for any particular
'PulseLab' exercise across these agencies, and trying them to adhere
to these interoperability standards, will be a worthwhile exercise.

d) Securing a donor for the DigitalGlobe Crisis Event service, to task
3 sub-meter satellites for use across UN, could be a good motivator
for UNGIWG to participate, if GlobalPulse can be the agency that
actually pulled in the $$. See attached; absolutely nothing has gone
forward.

Chris
----------------------------------------------
-----Forwarded by Chris NICHOLAS/VIENNA/UNO on 03/31/2010 10:37AM
-----

To: Lorant CZARAN/VIENNA/UNO@UNOV
From: Chris NICHOLAS/VIENNA/UNO
Date: 03/31/2010 10:04AM
cc: Kyoung-Soo Eom/United Nations@UNHQ-DPKO, Giorgio Sartori
<Giorgio...@wfp.org>, John....@fao.org, Andrew Alspach/OCHA/
GE@OCHA, Patrick Gordon/OCHA/GE@OCHA, Lauren Paletta/OCHA/GE@OCHA,
Akiko Harayama/OCHA/NY@OCHA, Alice Chow/United Nations@UNHQ-DPKO,
Francisco Igualada/United Nations@UNLB, Ayako Kagawa/United
Nations@UNHQ-DPKO, Luc St Pierre <STPI...@unhcr.org>, "Ebener, Steve
Nicolas" <ebe...@who.int>, Suha Ulgen/NY/UNO@UNHQ, Robert Kirkpatrick/
NY/UNO@UNHQ, Attila...@itu.int, Helen Bray/NY/UNO@UNHQ, Andre
Dehondt/NY/UNO@UNHQ, Coen BUSSINK/VIENNA/UNO@UNOV, Martin RAITHELHUBER/
VIENNA/UNO@UNOV, Gregory Giuliani <giul...@grid.unep.ch>,
ashraf....@ctbto.org, S.W....@iaea.org,
<E.VANSC...@iaea.org>, Carlos Veloso <Carlos...@wfp.org>,
sg...@worldbank.org, David STEVENS/VIENNA/UNO@UNOV, UN Space Aid/
VIENNA/UNO@UNOV, Michele KASDANO/VIENNA/UNO@UNOV
Subject: Re: Online high-resolution imagery service to facilitate
our direct access during all crises...

This 60-day United Nations trial account is now live, and works
fabulously.

An ESRI shapefile, updated daily, of what imagery is included in
the service is available at:
ftp://olpanon:olp...@ftp.digitalglobe.com/ls32.zip

Recognize this is nearly 15,000 scenes. At priority tasking, that
would be roughly $5000 US/scene, or somewhere in the range of ~
$75,000,000. And this only reflects ~1/2 year of WorldView
operations. We have only recently, with Haiti, really streamlined
protocol from SPIDER directly to their tasking group. Bottom line is:
they have a *vast* amount of excess capacity outside Iraq, Pakistan,
and Afghanistan, and we have collectively found a way to tap into it
for a token sum.

If you have never used this service, please allow me to give you a
remote demonstration via Skype screen sharing; I will make the time to
accomodate your schedules. If you have ArcMap, I will be more than
happy to assist installation and provide some basic training, again
using Skype, or other shared desktop.

It will be a shame if the primary users of time-critical imagery
within the United Nations, with mandates such as yours, are unable to
realize this incredible offer, made in good faith from America's
premier reconnaissance satellite operator.

Chris Nicholas
technical consultant

-----Lorant CZARAN/VIENNA/UNO wrote: -----

To: Kyoung-Soo Eom/United Nations@UNHQ-DPKO, Giorgio Sartori
<Giorgio...@wfp.org>, John....@fao.org, Andrew Alspach/OCHA/
GE@OCHA, Patrick Gordon/OCHA/GE@OCHA, Lauren Paletta/OCHA/GE@OCHA,
Akiko Harayama <hara...@un.org>, Alice Chow/United Nations@UNHQ-DPKO,
Francisco Igualada <igua...@un.org>, Ayako Kagawa/United Nations@UNHQ-
DPKO, Luc St Pierre <STPI...@unhcr.org>, "Ebener, Steve Nicolas"
<ebe...@who.int>, Suha Ulgen/NY/UNO@UNHQ, Robert Kirkpatrick/NY/
UNO@UNHQ, Attila...@itu.int, Helen Bray <br...@un.org>, Andre
Dehondt/NY/UNO@UNHQ, Coen BUSSINK/VIENNA/UNO@UNOV, Martin RAITHELHUBER/
VIENNA/UNO@UNOV, Gregory Giuliani <giul...@grid.unep.ch>,
ashraf....@ctbto.org, S.W....@iaea.org,
<E.VANSC...@iaea.org>, Carlos Veloso <Carlos...@wfp.org>,
sg...@worldbank.org
From: Lorant CZARAN/VIENNA/UNO
Date: 03/26/2010 02:43PM
cc: David STEVENS/VIENNA/UNO@UNOV, UN Space Aid/VIENNA/
UNO@UNOV, Michele KASDANO/VIENNA/UNO@UNOV
Subject: Online high-rezolution imagery service to facilitate
our direct access during all crises...

Dear Colleagues,

We have been recently offered a very good deal in our opinion,
that of full access via WMS, WFS or ImageConnect (known to some of you
from earlier uses) to the Digital Globe Crisis Event Service, that
collects quickly new imagery of any disaster areas based on requests
and news alerts, and loads it up for immediate access together with
best-available before (archived) imagery from their large archives.
The offer is made for a 100-user unlimited access we could
spread freely out across the UN entities.
Annual cost would be about 80-100K USD, not very cheap, but
given the vast amount of imagery we would all have access to, it is an
insignificant amount, and much cheaper than buying any of it of
course. It basically means not more than 20 satellite image scenes if
paid fully, and at single user license only...

It is true that the offer only covers Digital Globe imagery,
but with their new Worldview satellites added (50cm resolution), there
is plenty they have to offer, and can be tasked by us directly in
times of emergency.
We will also consider other options as they become available,
but for a year we consider this the best solution for multi-user and
fast access to the real imagery data.

The intention of this message is to informally enquire if any
or all of you, as more operational users of satellite imagery in your
daily work, would be interested in the service, for your respective
organizations, and if yes, would you be able to discuss splitting the
costs of the service, at least for a first year we could commit to?
UN-SPIDER is of course ready to take on the management of the
purchase as needed, and bring the funds together, which comes as
natural based on our mandate and after the many discussions we had and
efforts invested to try and have better access to such services. We
would be making use of the Imagery System Contract also as possible to
expedite the purchase.

I copy those of you in the UNGIWG framework considered also
"major potential users", but feel free to forward to others too within
your organizations or to outside as well.
Based on initial responses, we can circulate the details to
the RS SIG in UNGIWG too.
We can provide also full details on the proposed arrangement
as needed, or have a quick teleconference...

Looking forward to your answers and indications of interest in
the next days!

Best regards!

Lorant


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lóránt Czárán (Mr.)
Head of Office, Bonn
United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for
Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER)
UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)
UN Campus, Hermann-Ehlers Str. 10, Room 2332
53113 - Bonn, Germany
(Lat. 50.718417N, Long. 7.127300E)
tel.: +49 228 815 0682 , fax: +49 228 815 0699
BB.: +49 151 127 02265
e-mail: Cza...@unoosa.org
http://www.un-spider.org/

= UNGIWG Deputy Co-chair (2009-2010)
http://www.ungiwg.org/

[Chris]

I would also highly encourage people to check out:

http://www.unisdr.org/ppew/info-resources/ewc3/Global-Survey-of-Early-Warning-Systems.pdf

particularly section 2.2 .

While this is a dizzying array of systems, as Jack Dangermmond once
famously said: "Geography brings us together". Again, I think just
taking stock of what the stat of these various systems are in a
PulseLab country, what the responsible agency is, and what their
mapping (pun intended) to the members of www.ungiwg.org is a good
place to start. Beyond that, just structuring and interoperating
within OGC standards, beginning with discovery and catalog services,
is *plenty* to chew on...

Chris