[OSGeo-Discuss] Improving usability of INSPIRE data in FOSS4G client applications

[Marco Minghini]

Dear all,
at the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (JRC) we have been
working with our Contractors (WeTransform and Epsilon Italia) on a set of
actions aimed at improving the usability of INSPIRE data sets. For those
who are not familiar with INSPIRE [1], this is the European Spatial Data
Infrastructure (SDI) built on top EU Member States infrastructures to
support European environmental policies.

The rationale behind these actions is that GML is the default encoding for
INSPIRE data because INSPIRE xml schemas are generated automatically from
the conceptual UML models. These schemas are complex and many existing
(web, desktop and mobile) client applications are not able to fully consume
or make use of data shared according to these schemas.

Two actions have been completed over the last year in order to:
1) improve client support for INSPIRE data
2) develop an alternative encoding for INSPIRE data (GeoJSON)

Within the first Action [2], we compiled a "can I use" matrix [3]
describing which functionality associated with the consumption of INSPIRE
data (both in GML and GeoJSON) is supported by which client. The clients
tested are QGIS, GRASS GIS, hale studio, OpenLayers and LeafletJS as well
as some proprietary solutions.

This e-mail is first of all to inform you about this Action and to show
that, as you can notice in [3], open source solutions are currently the
most successful ones, but some improvement is still possible. In this
regard, we have established communication with the software PSC and/or
communities and discussed the prioritisation of functionalities that should
be improved or developed for each software to best satisfy user needs.

Whenever other encodings (e.g. GeoPackage) for INSPIRE data will become
available, the same approach should be followed.

In addition, since the Action is formally completed but the outcomes will
still be very important for the INSPIRE community in the future, we are
currently exploring how to ensure the sustainability of the tool. In
particular, we would open an invitation to anyone (project developers,
users or communities, or simply interested people) to contribute to keep
the matrix up-to-date by testing new/future versions of specific OSGeo
tools (in particular those mentioned above - QGIS, GRASS GIS, OpenLayers
and LeafletJS - but also other tools). The tests, described at [4], consist
of general GIS tasks and do not require INSPIRE-specific knowledge.
Interested people can also submit content through issues or pull requests
in the GitHub repository [5] or contact us.

Thank you all for your attention.
Best regards,
Alex and Marco


[1] https://inspire.ec.europa.eu
[2]
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/wikis/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=418580131
[3] https://inspire-mif.github.io/caniuse/generator/out.html
[4] https://github.com/INSPIRE-MIF/caniuse/tree/master/docs
[5] https://github.com/INSPIRE-MIF/caniuse
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