Czech Republic SDI - Geoportal System

The Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre (COSMC) launched a new version of its Geoportal system using Intergraph’s GeoMedia SDI suite. By doing so, the Office becomes one of the first national mapping agencies to fulfill its obligations arising from the INSPIRE Directive of European Parliament.

Through Geoportal, COSMC now publishes 165,000 metadata records describing its spatial datasets and services and returns search results in under one second. Most of the Geoportal website text content is generated from information held in the metadata records. The metadata records are updated daily via an Electronic Transformation and Loading (ETL) tool, which ensures the portal reflects updates made across 10 contributing production systems within COSMC. For example, daily updates to digital cadastral map coverage reflect changes in the Czech Republic’s real estate cadastre information system.

In addition, Geoportal provides INSPIRE-compliant search and view web services, including the EuroGeonames service. Geoportal tools also enable the purchase and licensing of geodata and services; this e-commerce facility is the exclusive interface by which the general public and public administration authorities can order such products.

Ing. Danuše Svobodová, Deputy Director of Land Surveying Office said, “During its six years of operation, COSMC’s Geoportal has evolved through many changes; from its origins as the Land Surveying Office’s primary e-commerce solution for map production, it has developed into a complex solution providing data and services from across the whole department of Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre (COSMC). The solution team, consisting of representatives from Intergraph, the Land Surveying Office and the Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre, was able to satisfy the requirements of the department, its users, and the INSPIRE directive as well. Many applications of the Geoportal have been truly innovative and implemented as first-of-their-kind in the Czech Republic. The COSMC Geoportal became an inspiration for other geoportals in the Czech Republic and foreign countries alike. Maintenance of the COSMC Geoportal represents a significant focus for the Land Surveying Office“.

“Intergraph is delighted to have helped COSMC establish its leading position within Europe’s SDI community” said Robert Widz, Intergraph EMEA Director for Government. “The insight gained through our work with European research programmes, INSPIRE Working Groups and successful implementations of regional, national and international SDI enabled us to develop our GeoMedia SDI product suite whose comprehensive capabilities reduce implementation risk and schedule. Customers will see these best-in-class offerings continue to advance, for example through integration of GeoMedia SDI capabilities with those of ERDAS APOLLO”.

Just some of the capabilities the Czech Geoportal delivers today are: a public Web portal to search and view metadata and map data; a fully populated catalogue of 165,000 validated metadata records; INSPIRE-compliant search and view services; a data download service for EuroGeonames; a special register for quick metadata search and a freely accessible metadata editor; and, an e-commerce including an interface to select and download exported data.