[ckan-dev] GIS dataset import

Fri Jan 17 09:01:11 UTC 2014

Hi everybody, some excellent discussion here, let me add some more pointers:

On 15 January 2014 13:36, Cliff Ingham <inghamn at bloomington.in.gov> wrote:
> Thanks for the pointers.  The fog has cleared some.  So, it sounds like
> we do actually put the data into ckan, and not just metadata.
>
> In other words, we need to find some way to export 3G of spatial and
> relational data from our GIS system into one of these formats?  Then
> load the exported data into CKAN as a dataset.

The CKAN datastore is currently optimized for tabular data (think CSV
or Excel files). As the backend is Postgres, it is certainly possible
to tweak to store geometries using PostGIS, but you won't get this out
of the box. Things like inputing geometries or ouputing GeoJSON would
need to be taken into account. (Henrik from the Copenhagen data portal
hangs around this list and may be able to give you more details on
this)

Another approach that might be more efficient is use a dedicated
geodata server like GeoServer or MapServer to publish your geodata and
register the relevant endpoints as CKAN datasets and resources, even
serving different formats.

Again, see for instance the Copenhangen data portal, where data is
served by GeoServer in different formats, which in turn are registered
and previewed in CKAN:

http://data.kk.dk/dataset/stednavne-knyttet-til-flade-arealer-gronne-omrader-soer-m-m

I think that long term this approach is more sustainable, as you will
eventually may need the flexibility and features that GeoServer can
provide for geodata. Again nothing prevents you from using the CKAN
datastore for storing GIS data, but is worth considering an
integration approach with a tool that does a good job dealing with geo
formats.

Adrià