[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: 20030623: Question about NcML Coordinate System and OpenGIS





From: John del Corral <address@hidden>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.9-31 i686)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: address@hidden
CC: address@hidden, address@hidden
Subject: Question about NcML Coordinate System and OpenGIS
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Dear NcML,

I had a question about the NcML Coordinate System and how
it can incorporate the OpenGIS EPSG projections (see
http://www.opengis.org/techno/interop/EPSG2WKT.TXT

I was reading the information about the NcML Coordinate System 1.0
"beta" at
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/ncml/
and the AWIPS NcML example.  It looks like the process of incorporating
an EPSG projection into NcML requirs 4 steps:

1) Define the coordinateTransform using parameters
2) Define x,y coordinateAxes with an axisType of 'GeoX' and 'GeoY'

3) Define a coordinateSystem using the coordinate...Refs
4) Specify the coordinateSystem for each variable in the file

I would like to know if this is the correct approach for me to take
and if you have an example of using an OpenGIS EPSG projection in NcML.
This may be a naive question, but will it be possible in future releases of NcML to incorporate OpenGIS projections in a less complicated structure? Possibly a common reference file or library like udunits? or some other type of a more direct reference?

Thank you,
        John

This is basically correct, although much of the work is done for you in the ucar.nc2.dataset.conv package. A lot depends on what information is already in the netccdf file.

NcML Coordinate System is a very simple first pass at representing this information. Stefano Nativi has proposed a more comprehensive XML encoding, and we will be working on that again this summer.

However, one can use NcML Coordinate System as they are now. A coordinateTransform XML element is really just a container for name/value parameters of things like projections. The names and meanings of those parameters are arbitrary, and are intended to be specified by some outside "authority", in your case "EPSG".
Heres a possible example I made up based on this entry of the above table:

PROJCS["Belge 1950 (Brussels) / Belge Lambert 50",GEOGCS["Belge 1950 (Brussels)",DATUM["Reseau_National_Belge_1950",SPHEROID["International 
1924",6378388,297]],PRIMEM["Brussels",4.367975],UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433]], 
PROJECTION["Lambert_Conformal_Conic_2SP"],PARAMETER["standard_parallel_1",49.8333333333333], PARAMETER["standard_parallel_2",51.1666666666667],PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",90], 
PARAMETER["central_meridian",0],PARAMETER["false_easting",150000],PARAMETER["false_northing",5400000],UNIT["metre",1]]
EPSG=21790


<nc:coordinateTransform name="Belge 1950 (Brussels)" authority="EPSG" transformType="Projection"> <nc:parameter name="Datum" type="string" value="Reseau_National_Belge_1950" /> <nc:parameter name="Spheriod" type="string" value="International 1924,6378388,297" /> <nc:parameter name="Projection" type="string" value="Lambert_Conformal_Conic_2SP" /> <nc:parameter name="standard_parallel_1" type="double" value="49.8333333333333" /> <nc:parameter name="standard_parallel_2" type="double" value="51.1666666666667" />
 <nc:parameter name="latitude_of_origin" type="double" value="90.0" />
 <nc:parameter name="central_meridian" type="double" value="0" />
 <nc:parameter name="false_easting" type="double" value="150000" />
 <nc:parameter name="false_northing" type="double" value="540000" />
 <nc:parameter name="unit" type="string" value="metre" />
 <nc:parameter name="EPSG" type="string" value="21790" />
</nc:coordinateTransform>

So you get the idea, this is not so hard, although Stefano's encodings carry much more semantic information.

There are 2 other parts to the problem that are much harder:

1) Where does this information come from? As it stands now, it is placed into the netcdf file using some convention, and then some softwrae knows how to read that convention and construct the NcML Coordinate System.

2) Given the EPSG Coordinate Transform information, we need a software library that can do the mathematical transformations between projection coordinates and lat/lon. We have done a few of the most popular projections in the ucar.unidata.geoloc.projection package.

Both require some framework that application software can use. If you are interested in adding EPSG projections in the context of the java-netcdf library, that would be very exciting for us.