OpenGIS Web Feature Server
Abstract
‘There is so much data out there, why can’t we just use it?’ This is an oft-heard cry from spatial information users. More than 80 per cent of all data has a spatial component, and more than 80 per cent of the time spent on spatial information projects is wasted on non-productive activities such as data acquisition, negotiation, loading and transformation.
In NSW, the Community Access to Natural Resources Information program is addressing this issue very successfully. It has implemented a framework for online data sharing using OpenGIS specifications between NSW government agencies and community organisations. The CANRI portal [www.canri.nsw.gov.au] is the NSW starting point for all natural resource-related applications, atlases and metadata that share online spatial data resources.
In September 2002, the OpenGIS Consortium released a new specification for interoperable access to vector databases: the Web Feature Server. CANRI, co-sponsor of the development of the WFS, has now piloted the world’s first WFS implementation outside an OGC-controlled laboratory environment.