Skip to content

HUMBOLDT project news

Notes from the HUMBOLDT Project

The HUMBOLDT project is currently in the middle of its extension phase approved by the EC. During these additional 6 months we are further advancing and disseminating the results of 4 years of research and development in geodata harmonisation. This newsletter edition informs you about the extension work plan applied, planned and upcoming workshops, presentations and trainings about the data harmonisation tools and services developed as well as on new software releases.

Please, feel free to check our website for planned and ongoing activities in your area of interest or the community website for updates of the HUMBOLDT Tools and Services.

On behalf of the HUMBOLDT consortium I send you our Season’s Greetings and wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.

Dr. Joachim Rix, Co-ordinator of the HUMBOLDT Project
Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research, Darmstadt, Germany

Project News

HUMBOLDT Project Extension Work Plan

The following list provides a comprehensive overview of the tasks and actions planned in the extension work plan (EWP):

*EWP 1: Outreach Activities
This includes the implementation of a Customer Relation Management (CRM) System, the organisation of several HUMBOLDT Workshops as well as presentations at events and conferences.

*EWP 2: Training
In this work package the continuous adoption and revision of training material as well as maintenance of the training platform are included. Furthermore, specific training actions have been implemented or are still in preparation.

*EWP 3: Customisation of the HUMBOLDT Framework
Customisation activities embrace language translations of specifications and other software documentation, continued framework testing and evaluation as well as specific integration and updating required for related projects and targeted communities.

*EWP 4: Long-term Sustainability
An important part for securing the long-term sustainability of the HUMBOLDT Framework is the moderation and support of the Community Website. Furthermore, the development of straightforward user reports on HUMBOLDT tools is planned. Another major part within this work package is the development of two edited books, summarising the achievements and results on a scientific and practical level.

In addition the long term sustainability plan for the HUMBOLDT Framework has to be established to ensure a continuation of the future development effort and broad use of the project results.

HUMBOLDT Framework for Data Harmonisation

In the past months two versions of the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor have been released. Especially the latter should be highlighted as it integrates software developments by 1Spatial , a developer of market leading intelligent data quality and integration solutions.

In the context of the drafting of the INSPIRE Technical Guidance on Schema Translation, 1Spatial decided to incorporate the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor into the accompanying proof-of-concept activities. At the INSPIRE Conference 2010, preliminary results including an extension of the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor to output schema mappings in RIF were presented. 1Spatial decided to make this extension available to the public.

The bug fixes and feature supplements in these release candidates are based on thorough evaluations by several users. The majority of the reported issues could be resolved. Examples of the implemented improvements are the resolution of the incorrect positioning of map tiles, performance issues with large schemas as well as memory leaks. New features are, for instance, the read functionality to hide property types in the schema explorer, relative paths in the project file and filters for attributive functions.

Please don’t hesitate to tell us what you think of the most current release and report about problems you are encountering and/or features that you are missing. For more information, please visit the HALE News at the Community Website

All components of the HUMBOLDT Framework as well as full specifications are available for free download on the Community Website

Please use the forum on the community website to discuss any new issues or difficulties you are encountering.

HUMBOLDT at the ASITA 2010 Conference

The 14th ASITA National Conference
took place from the 9 – 12 November 2010 in Brescia, Italy. HUMBOLDT was represented by one workshop and two papers.

The event was an opportunity to disseminate the project results to the Italian community of interest. The participants were SDI Stakeholders, Public Administrations (mostly Italian Regions, but also Provinces and Municipalities) and more generally Italian users dealing with geodata harmonisation.

The workshop was focused on telling the main objectives and achievements of the project, presenting operational tools developed and promoting the online platform for training.

The workshop, as mentioned before, was anticipated by the presentation of two papers: one presented during a session dedicated to European Projects, and the other presented during a poster session. The first paper presented HUMBOLDT harmonisation toolkit, while the second one presented the HUMBOLDT training framework.

HUMBOLDT Workshop: INSPIRE Implementation for LMO’s

In November a 3-day course “INSPIRE Implementation for (Dutch) LMO’s” was given by TU Delft. It was the first in a series; the next will be in March 2011. The November course was specifically aimed at Rijkswaterstaat, a core agency of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment.

Part of the course was a ‘hands on’ introduction to the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor (HALE). For this the training material prepared in WP12 was used: a step-by-step example of ‘schema mapping’ between existing administrative data (source model) and the INSPIRE Administrative Units data model (target model). By using the Alignment Editor the attendants got a first impression of the complexity of schema mapping as part of the data harmonisation work that has to be done for implementing INSPIRE in the member states. The use of HALE by experts from outside HUMBOLDT was also a good way to obtain feedback: what kind of extra functionality would be beneficial according to these users, and which part of the user interface requires additional explanation, in the course material or in the manual.

HUMBOLDT at the EFAEP General Assembly

During the EFAEP General Assembly held in Brussels on 25 October 2010 a HUMBOLDT Workshop has been organised. EFAEP is the European Federation of Associations of Environmental Professionals, whose aim is to provide a knowledge base and an information interchange tool between Environmental Professionals, Public Institutions and Private Organisations searching for personnel.

The workshop has been organised to spread the results of the HUMBOLDT project towards a specific interest community, in this case the community of environmental professionals that work with environmental and spatial data: it was indeed targeted to match professional interest and touch all the topics that may arouse within this specialist group of stakeholders.

The workshop gave an overview of HUMBOLDT and its relations to INSPIRE and GMES. In addition, the HUMBOLDT Tools and Services, Training Framework and Scenarios were presented. Special focus was set on those interesting from an environmental point of view: Ocean, Forest, ERiskA, Protected Areas and Transboundary Catchments.

HUMBOLDT Workshop at the Plan4all Project Meeting

The HUMBOLDT approach for data harmonisation and its applicability to other European projects was presented during the Plan4all

Thematic Workshop held at Lazio Region in Rome, Italy on October 15, 2010.

The main aim of the Plan4All project is to harmonise spatial planning data and related metadata according to the INSPIRE principles. Therefore, Plan4All and HUMBOLDT are facing common issues related to spatial data, particularly in terms of data harmonisation.

The Workshop provided an overview of the HUMBOLDT project, especially taking into consideration the peculiar aspects of the Plan4All project. In addition, the HUMBOLDT Training Framework for education and HUMBOLDT Training Platform were introduced.

The HUMBOLDT Urban Planning Scenario was presented in detail, as it represents a Plan4All interest area as well as the Urban Atlas Scenario and the need of open, harmonised and standardised systems in order to share knowledge between citizens, planners and political representatives.

Upcoming HUMBOLDT Events

16. Münchner Fortbildungsseminar Geoinformationssysteme – Conference and Training Seminar in Munich, Germany

GIS experts from academia, industry and government will gather in Munich for two days of training courses and workshops followed by a two-day conference from 21-24 March, 2011.

Training courses and workshops will be held on topics like geodatabases, CityGML, data harmonisation in INSPIRE context, WFS for INSPIRE application schemas, Web Processing Services, Microsoft Bing Maps, Location-based services for smart phones, GMES services and semantic model transformation.

Key conference topics include cloud computing, spatial data mining, GeoWeb 2.0, standards & INSPIRE, mobile services and systems, 3D city models & 3D simulations, energy systems, geo visualisation as well as environmental and risk assessment in urban areas. Courses and presentations will be held in German.

HUMBOLDT will be presented in the workshop “Semantische Modelltransformation” (semantic model transformation) on Tuesday, March 22. In addition, the training course “Datenharmonisierung im Kontext von INSPIRE” (data harmonisation in the INSPIRE context) on the same day will make use of project results like the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor (HALE) based on the experiences in the European Risk Atlas Scenario (ERiskA).

AGISEE Data Harmonisation Workshop 2011

AGISEE organises an SDI workshop to take place on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, in Sofia, Bulgaria. The focus is set on tools and experiences related to the realisation of INSPIRE. HUMBOLDT will be presented by several workshops and presentations.

HUMBOLDT Workshop at the BRISEIDE Project Meeting

In March 2011 the HUMBOLDT approach for data harmonisation will be presented to the BRISEIDE project in Lisbon, Portugal.

The HUMBOLDT Project in brief

The EU project HUMBOLDT contributes to the implementation of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI) that integrates the diversity of spatial data available for a multitude of European organisations. It is the aim of this project to manage and advance important parts of the implementation process of this ESDI.

The main goal of the HUMBOLDT project is to enable organisations to document, publish and harmonise their spatial information. The software tools and processes created will demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe as planned by the INSPIRE initiative, meeting the goals of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES).

Learn more about HUMBOLDT by visiting our Website

Contact
HUMBOLDT Project Office
zeitform Internet Dienste OHG
Fraunhoferstraße 5
64283 Darmstadt
Germany
Phone: +49 6151 155 637
Fax: +49 6151 155 634
E-Mail: po@esdi-humboldt.eu

Executive Board
Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Corporate Management
Dr. Ulrich Buller, Research Planning
Dr. Alfred Gossner, Finance, Controlling, IT
Prof. Dr. Marion Schick, Human Resources and Legal Affairs