About GeoNexus™
The Iowa DOT has a wealth of business data that has or can have a geographic component to it. This geographic component allows individuals to see business data on a map and data to interact spatially with other data. As more systems require real-time and interactive maps, the Iowa DOT is providing a standard way through Open Geospatial Consortium Inc.'s (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) to quickly disseminate geospatial information.
A WMS produces maps of spatially referenced data dynamically from geographic information. This international standard defines a "map" to be a portrayal of geographic information as a digital image file suitable for display on a computer screen in PNG, GIF or JPEG. WFS provides an interface allowing requests for geographical features across the Web using platform-independent calls. For example, one could query primary road centerline data and return only roads that are asphalt and have paved shoulders, using software that supports WFS.
WMS/WFS is being implemented at the Iowa DOT to provide a standard and open way to query, view and display Iowa DOT spatial data. Not creating and maintaining a WMS/WFS layer, a myriad of spatial connections would be needed to accommodate each geospatial project. As more spatial connections are needed, these additional connections would need to be managed and maintained independent of one another.
With a service layer, multiple unique connections are needed from the service layer to the business data, but each system only needs to maintain one connection to the service layer. When a database is updated or modified, only the service layer needs to validate that the data is working properly and additional work by Iowa DOT's computer support teams is minimal.
Iowa DOT WMS/WFS (GeoNexus) project is a three-phased project. Phase one is to provide a public-facing internet WMS/WFS that external Iowa DOT geospatial systems can read. As more DOT systems add spatial information, the new data can be made available through GeoNexus.
Phase 2 will implement an Iowa DOT internal WMS/WFS. An internal WMS/WFS will allow the Iowa DOT to post more sensitive data or more complete sets of data for Iowa DOT employees. For example, the internal WMS/WFS may make all five year program business data available to DOT employees or show where snowplows are in real time to the Iowa's DOT’s operations support center.
Phase 3 implements an external Oracle® Spatial database to provide storage for geospatial data consistent with how data is stored now. By adding an internet Oracle Spatial database, the Iowa DOT can also stage data from its existing geospatial databases to the WMS/WFS in real time, with minimum human intervention.
Please see the quick link page for data available. GeoNexus also supports native Google™ and ESRI™ connections, plus provides JSON, SOAP and JavaScript.
