[Geoserver-devel] Request builders: is it time for a WCS one?

GeoServer GeoServer Developer
1

Hi,
during the last two days I've spent some hours trying to build
another request builder.

Given the good success of the WPS one, and seeing as I hoped that
it makes playing with WPS much easier, getting new users started
and giving devs a tool to try their processes quickly, I've decided to
make one for GeoServer's black sheep service, WCS.

I say black sheep because it's undoubtedly the less used and as
a result the less debugged of the available OWS services.
With good reason, and it's not because nobody likes rasters, but
more because both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests are stupidly
hard to build by hand.

I've just attached to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-4282 a
patch that adds said builder along with a couple of screenshots.

Highlights:
- allows to build both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests
- figures out the obscure params for you, but also allows one to
  fill them in manually

Issues:
- it makes it painfully clear that WCS reprojection is not quite
  working (in neither versions)
- the grid layout parameter guessing code could certainly use
  some more love
- the CRS choosers are still open ended, they should allow
  only for the CRSs declared in the coverage description instead
- band selection is still missing (that's probably the first thing
  I'm going to add)
- they are brand new so quite possibly buggy
- they use ajax a lot, this makes unit testing them quite hard
  (in my experience WicketTester support for forms that have
   a lot of dynamic elements leaves a lot to be desired)

I personally see more pros than cons and I'd like to commit the
patch in the web-wcs module, hoping this will trigger some
more usage and development on the WCS side.

However this is a decision that needs to be taken as a group,
since this would be fresh code getting straight into core (even if
it's just a demo panel).

Opinions, feedback welcomed

Cheers
Andrea

PS: anyone up to build a WFS request builder? WFS requests
are easy but very often people get the syntax slightly wrong :wink:

-----------------------------------------------------
Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

-----------------------------------------------------

2

CIao Andrea,
I am +1 about this since I think it would make a useful addition.
I am not too worried about putting this in at this point.

SImone.
-------------------------------------------------------
Ing. Simone Giannecchini
GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Founder

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313
mob: +39 333 8128928

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/simonegiannecchini
http://twitter.com/simogeo

-------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Andrea Aime
<andrea.aime@anonymised.com> wrote:

Hi,
during the last two days I've spent some hours trying to build
another request builder.

Given the good success of the WPS one, and seeing as I hoped that
it makes playing with WPS much easier, getting new users started
and giving devs a tool to try their processes quickly, I've decided to
make one for GeoServer's black sheep service, WCS.

I say black sheep because it's undoubtedly the less used and as
a result the less debugged of the available OWS services.
With good reason, and it's not because nobody likes rasters, but
more because both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests are stupidly
hard to build by hand.

I've just attached to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-4282 a
patch that adds said builder along with a couple of screenshots.

Highlights:
- allows to build both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests
- figures out the obscure params for you, but also allows one to
fill them in manually

Issues:
- it makes it painfully clear that WCS reprojection is not quite
working (in neither versions)
- the grid layout parameter guessing code could certainly use
some more love
- the CRS choosers are still open ended, they should allow
only for the CRSs declared in the coverage description instead
- band selection is still missing (that's probably the first thing
I'm going to add)
- they are brand new so quite possibly buggy
- they use ajax a lot, this makes unit testing them quite hard
(in my experience WicketTester support for forms that have
a lot of dynamic elements leaves a lot to be desired)

I personally see more pros than cons and I'd like to commit the
patch in the web-wcs module, hoping this will trigger some
more usage and development on the WCS side.

However this is a decision that needs to be taken as a group,
since this would be fresh code getting straight into core (even if
it's just a demo panel).

Opinions, feedback welcomed

Cheers
Andrea

PS: anyone up to build a WFS request builder? WFS requests
are easy but very often people get the syntax slightly wrong :wink:

-----------------------------------------------------
Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

-----------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl
_______________________________________________
Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

3

+1. Good stuff. Just wonder if we should put it under tools instead of
demos?

Cheers,
Gabriel
On Wed, 2010-12-29 at 13:12 +0100, Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi,
during the last two days I've spent some hours trying to build
another request builder.

Given the good success of the WPS one, and seeing as I hoped that
it makes playing with WPS much easier, getting new users started
and giving devs a tool to try their processes quickly, I've decided to
make one for GeoServer's black sheep service, WCS.

I say black sheep because it's undoubtedly the less used and as
a result the less debugged of the available OWS services.
With good reason, and it's not because nobody likes rasters, but
more because both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests are stupidly
hard to build by hand.

I've just attached to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-4282 a
patch that adds said builder along with a couple of screenshots.

Highlights:
- allows to build both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests
- figures out the obscure params for you, but also allows one to
  fill them in manually

Issues:
- it makes it painfully clear that WCS reprojection is not quite
  working (in neither versions)
- the grid layout parameter guessing code could certainly use
  some more love
- the CRS choosers are still open ended, they should allow
  only for the CRSs declared in the coverage description instead
- band selection is still missing (that's probably the first thing
  I'm going to add)
- they are brand new so quite possibly buggy
- they use ajax a lot, this makes unit testing them quite hard
  (in my experience WicketTester support for forms that have
   a lot of dynamic elements leaves a lot to be desired)

I personally see more pros than cons and I'd like to commit the
patch in the web-wcs module, hoping this will trigger some
more usage and development on the WCS side.

However this is a decision that needs to be taken as a group,
since this would be fresh code getting straight into core (even if
it's just a demo panel).

Opinions, feedback welcomed

Cheers
Andrea

PS: anyone up to build a WFS request builder? WFS requests
are easy but very often people get the syntax slightly wrong :wink:

-----------------------------------------------------
Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

-----------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl
_______________________________________________
Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

--
Gabriel Roldan
groldan@anonymised.com
Expert service straight from the developers

4

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 5:04 PM, Gabriel Roldán <groldan@anonymised.com> wrote:

+1. Good stuff. Just wonder if we should put it under tools instead of
demos?

Not sure either. Are tools supposed to be accessible to the general population
or just the admin?

Surely a builder looks more like a tool than a demo, but it's meant
for everybody
to use.

Demo requests are certainly demos. The preview link is in its own category,
but if we had to classify it, it would be a bit of both.

SRS list is inside demos as well, but it's not a demo at all in the
end. Is that a tool?
Meh, if I had to find some affinity the SRS list would seem more like
a capabilities
document to me (since it lists and gives access to all of the SRS the
server can
understand).

Sooo... the situation is a bit confusing to me :slight_smile:

Cheers
Andrea

-----------------------------------------------------
Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

-----------------------------------------------------

5

+1 and I like the idea of tools used to help people make requests

Jody

On 31/12/2010, at 3:04 AM, Gabriel Roldán wrote:

+1. Good stuff. Just wonder if we should put it under tools instead of
demos?

Cheers,
Gabriel
On Wed, 2010-12-29 at 13:12 +0100, Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi,
during the last two days I've spent some hours trying to build
another request builder.

Given the good success of the WPS one, and seeing as I hoped that
it makes playing with WPS much easier, getting new users started
and giving devs a tool to try their processes quickly, I've decided to
make one for GeoServer's black sheep service, WCS.

I say black sheep because it's undoubtedly the less used and as
a result the less debugged of the available OWS services.
With good reason, and it's not because nobody likes rasters, but
more because both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests are stupidly
hard to build by hand.

I've just attached to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-4282 a
patch that adds said builder along with a couple of screenshots.

Highlights:
- allows to build both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests
- figures out the obscure params for you, but also allows one to
fill them in manually

Issues:
- it makes it painfully clear that WCS reprojection is not quite
working (in neither versions)
- the grid layout parameter guessing code could certainly use
some more love
- the CRS choosers are still open ended, they should allow
only for the CRSs declared in the coverage description instead
- band selection is still missing (that's probably the first thing
I'm going to add)
- they are brand new so quite possibly buggy
- they use ajax a lot, this makes unit testing them quite hard
(in my experience WicketTester support for forms that have
  a lot of dynamic elements leaves a lot to be desired)

I personally see more pros than cons and I'd like to commit the
patch in the web-wcs module, hoping this will trigger some
more usage and development on the WCS side.

However this is a decision that needs to be taken as a group,
since this would be fresh code getting straight into core (even if
it's just a demo panel).

Opinions, feedback welcomed

Cheers
Andrea

PS: anyone up to build a WFS request builder? WFS requests
are easy but very often people get the syntax slightly wrong :wink:

-----------------------------------------------------
Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

-----------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl
_______________________________________________
Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

--
Gabriel Roldan
groldan@anonymised.com
Expert service straight from the developers

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl
_______________________________________________
Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

6

+1 here, and I agree it’d be fine to just put in, even though it’s technically ‘core’, since nothing else depends on it.

As for tools vs demos, I’d say call it a tool, and just change the heading from ‘Collection of GeoServer adminstrative tools’ to ‘Collection of GeoServer tools’ or something.

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Simone Giannecchini <simone.giannecchini@anonymised.com> wrote:

CIao Andrea,
I am +1 about this since I think it would make a useful addition.
I am not too worried about putting this in at this point.

SImone.

Ing. Simone Giannecchini
GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Founder

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

mob: +39 333 8128928

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/simonegiannecchini
http://twitter.com/simogeo

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Andrea Aime
<andrea.aime@anonymised.com> wrote:

Hi,
during the last two days I’ve spent some hours trying to build
another request builder.

Given the good success of the WPS one, and seeing as I hoped that
it makes playing with WPS much easier, getting new users started
and giving devs a tool to try their processes quickly, I’ve decided to
make one for GeoServer’s black sheep service, WCS.

I say black sheep because it’s undoubtedly the less used and as
a result the less debugged of the available OWS services.
With good reason, and it’s not because nobody likes rasters, but
more because both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests are stupidly
hard to build by hand.

I’ve just attached to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-4282 a
patch that adds said builder along with a couple of screenshots.

Highlights:

  • allows to build both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests
  • figures out the obscure params for you, but also allows one to
    fill them in manually

Issues:

  • it makes it painfully clear that WCS reprojection is not quite
    working (in neither versions)
  • the grid layout parameter guessing code could certainly use
    some more love
  • the CRS choosers are still open ended, they should allow
    only for the CRSs declared in the coverage description instead
  • band selection is still missing (that’s probably the first thing
    I’m going to add)
  • they are brand new so quite possibly buggy
  • they use ajax a lot, this makes unit testing them quite hard
    (in my experience WicketTester support for forms that have
    a lot of dynamic elements leaves a lot to be desired)

I personally see more pros than cons and I’d like to commit the
patch in the web-wcs module, hoping this will trigger some
more usage and development on the WCS side.

However this is a decision that needs to be taken as a group,
since this would be fresh code getting straight into core (even if
it’s just a demo panel).

Opinions, feedback welcomed

Cheers
Andrea

PS: anyone up to build a WFS request builder? WFS requests
are easy but very often people get the syntax slightly wrong :wink:

Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl

Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl

Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@anonymised.comsts.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

7

Just to clarify between demos and tools. Tools are for those things (utilities) that don’t fall into the other categories but also require admin access to use because they give too much access. Examples that i have developed tools for are:

  • an h2 viewer for viewing and debugging any h2 database used on the server
  • a python console for interactive scripting which provides access to the geoserver catalog

Both of which could not be provided obviously via anonymous access.

That said i think wcs builder falls under demos. But I think makes most sense in the web-wcs module. And since it is a ui demo contribution i think is pretty low risk to commit there.

+1 on the patch.

2c.

-Justin

On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 11:49 AM, Chris Holmes <cholmes@anonymised.com> wrote:

+1 here, and I agree it’d be fine to just put in, even though it’s technically ‘core’, since nothing else depends on it.

As for tools vs demos, I’d say call it a tool, and just change the heading from ‘Collection of GeoServer adminstrative tools’ to ‘Collection of GeoServer tools’ or something.

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Simone Giannecchini <simone.giannecchini@anonymised.com> wrote:

CIao Andrea,
I am +1 about this since I think it would make a useful addition.
I am not too worried about putting this in at this point.

SImone.

Ing. Simone Giannecchini
GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Founder

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

mob: +39 333 8128928

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/simonegiannecchini
http://twitter.com/simogeo

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Andrea Aime
<andrea.aime@anonymised.com> wrote:

Hi,
during the last two days I’ve spent some hours trying to build
another request builder.

Given the good success of the WPS one, and seeing as I hoped that
it makes playing with WPS much easier, getting new users started
and giving devs a tool to try their processes quickly, I’ve decided to
make one for GeoServer’s black sheep service, WCS.

I say black sheep because it’s undoubtedly the less used and as
a result the less debugged of the available OWS services.
With good reason, and it’s not because nobody likes rasters, but
more because both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests are stupidly
hard to build by hand.

I’ve just attached to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-4282 a
patch that adds said builder along with a couple of screenshots.

Highlights:

  • allows to build both WCS 1.0 and WCS 1.1 requests
  • figures out the obscure params for you, but also allows one to
    fill them in manually

Issues:

  • it makes it painfully clear that WCS reprojection is not quite
    working (in neither versions)
  • the grid layout parameter guessing code could certainly use
    some more love
  • the CRS choosers are still open ended, they should allow
    only for the CRSs declared in the coverage description instead
  • band selection is still missing (that’s probably the first thing
    I’m going to add)
  • they are brand new so quite possibly buggy
  • they use ajax a lot, this makes unit testing them quite hard
    (in my experience WicketTester support for forms that have
    a lot of dynamic elements leaves a lot to be desired)

I personally see more pros than cons and I’d like to commit the
patch in the web-wcs module, hoping this will trigger some
more usage and development on the WCS side.

However this is a decision that needs to be taken as a group,
since this would be fresh code getting straight into core (even if
it’s just a demo panel).

Opinions, feedback welcomed

Cheers
Andrea

PS: anyone up to build a WFS request builder? WFS requests
are easy but very often people get the syntax slightly wrong :wink:

Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl

Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl

Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and,
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl

Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@anonymised.comsts.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

–
Justin Deoliveira
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
Enterprise support for open source geospatial.

8

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 6:46 PM, Justin Deoliveira <jdeolive@anonymised.com> wrote:

Just to clarify between demos and tools. Tools are for those things
(utilities) that don't fall into the other categories but also require admin
access to use because they give too much access. Examples that i have
developed tools for are:
* an h2 viewer for viewing and debugging any h2 database used on the server
* a python console for interactive scripting which provides access to the
geoserver catalog
Both of which could not be provided obviously via anonymous access.
That said i think wcs builder falls under demos. But I think makes most
sense in the web-wcs module. And since it is a ui demo contribution i think
is pretty low risk to commit there.
+1 on the patch.

Builder in. "Enjoy"* :-p

Cheers
Andrea

*: as I said, the builder just makes it evident that reprojection
in WCS is not quite working but oh well, one of the main side
effects I'm expecting is more attention to WCS itself in fact

-----------------------------------------------------
Ing. Andrea Aime
Senior Software Engineer

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax: +39 0584962313

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime
http://twitter.com/geowolf

-----------------------------------------------------