Welcome
This is a demonstration web site built specifically to illustrate the functionality of the CYGnus system produced as part of an MSc project in Geographical Information Science.
Scotland's Geographical Information
Scotland benefits from a range of high-quality information sources produced by various local and central government departments and agencies.
The problem is that these agencies have been competing to ensure their information is exposed to the public, and a whole host of proprietary solutions have emerged with no consistency of interface or provision of a standardised format for the data to be accessed in.
Aims
The research aim for this project out of frustration in the inability of the Geographical Information community in being able to share data.
Whilst completing a degree in Geographical Information Science at the University of Edinburgh the opportunity arose to implement a solution in cooperation with the Scottish government.
The aim of this project was to develop a mechanism to allow users to search disparate information silos using geographical location and have a single document delivered to them in a standards compliant format.
Research Aim
Develop a new implementation method to provide a lightweight, scalable and standards compliant geographical information delivery system for Scotland
Through this research aim, specific research questions arose.
Research questions:
- What are the challenges in the ability to share data within a community?
- What geographical restriction are placed on digital information delivery?
- How to consider the implementation of a lightweight, scalable model of information delivery?
Connecting Your Geographies
The CYGnus (Connecting Your Geographies) project developed by Niall Carter and Bruce Gittings at the University of Edinburgh provides a scalable framework which connects disparate information sources. The system is developed around the geographic glue of location allowing users to search based upon location across a range of services.
Using a new, novel and exciting approach, this system for the first time removes the pressure on information providers to organise and develop their own data delivery (download) systems and allows them to "plug into" CYGnus and focus on how they are able to target the system toward their own end user. This creates a series of standardised, specialised portals to the same underlying centralised service.
For the technically-minded
CYGnus provides a new protocol for distributing geographically-referenced text, with its little brother (CYGnet) distributing URLs pointing to other resources of interest, which are clustered around the point of interest. CYGnus makes use of the KML standard, popularised by GoogleEarth, but accessible to a number of different geobrowsers and GIS software packages. CYGnus is not the same as the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) services, which are concerned with distributing images of maps and geographical features (points, lines and polygons) respectively. This is because these standards do not include the capability to serve text-based information. However CYGnus is compatible with these standards and can run alongside them as part of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The inclusion of the National Library of Scotland's mapping illustrates the use of Web Map Service (WMS) provided within the context of CYGnus, alongside the text-based data.
Benefits
- Availability of a single and standardised service across all available datasets which in turn benefits users to for the first time have direct access to centrally held information based around geographical location
- Considerable benefit can be 'geared' by using data from different organisations in combination
- The significant advantages to the Geographical Information strategy for Scotland is the production of a lightweight, scalable and standardised service which provides an avenue for communication, co-operation and confluence between included information providers.
- Portals allow the data to be focussed towards end users (for example, members of the public) or made available as a download to professional users.
- Data is provided in real-time, from their source databases. There is no update-copy-release-publish cycle.
- Various geographical clients have been able to be easily supported, such as Google Maps on the web, Google Earth installed on an individual's own machine, or a professional GIS package (eg. ArcGIS).
- Potential cost savings are significant; the same data is used by multiple services, without duplicating the underlying infrastructure.