1Spatial plays integral part in ESDIN

29 October 2008, 10:06am

1Spatial is pleased to announce their involvement in the European Spatial Data Infrastructure Network (ESDIN), established by the European Commission to develop a Best Practice Network and to evaluate the theory of integrating national Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs).

Funded by the European Commission’s eContentplus programme, ESDIN’s objective is to assist with the construction of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI), in the context of INSPIRE*. Such an ESDI would support policy making in areas, such as those that concern the protection of the environment. The long-term goal is to enable access to Europe-wide, harmonised, geospatially referenced data for INSPIRE Annex I themes, such as cadastral parcels, hydrography and transport networks, at both a European and local level.

The project will look to construct a bridge between the concept and practical implementation of INSPIRE. This will be achieved by improving aggregated information for a number of INSPIRE data themes and providing interoperability services, as well as supporting the ongoing development and testing of INSPIRE Implementing Rules and data specifications.

1Spatial is specifically involved in a number of work packages relating to data quality, metadata, edge matching and, notably, generalisation. As such, 1Spatial will be assisting National Mapping and Cadastre Agencies (NMCA) and other consortium members with technologies and methodologies in relation to:

· Data quality evaluation - for assessing the level of conformance of existing data to the INSPIRE rules, contributing to the feasibility assessment for the reuse of existing NMCA data within the ESDI
· Generalisation capability - to enable NMCA data to be readily and conveniently remodelled for reuse at alternate scales through web services
· Providing data maintenance support – to assist with the maintenance of data that is correctly edge-matched in Member States and across transnational boundaries

Krister Olson, Official of the Directorate-General for Information Society of the European Commission, the eContentplus decision making body, said:

“ESDIN scored very highly on the eContentplus ratings scale. This is a testament to the hard work put in by the team led by EuroGeographics to create such an invaluable project. We encourage all European organisations in this domain and INSPIRE stakeholders to follow its progress and observe the best practices that will come as a result.”

Dave Lovell, Executive Director, EuroGeographics, commented:

”We are very pleased to be leading ESDIN. This project will provide many practical and useful applications for our members and many benefits to a broad user community. It will help to demonstrate that our members are at the heart of the European Spatial Data Infrastructure, working at the cutting edge of technology and, in doing so, making a very substantial contribution to the implementation of INSPIRE. It is important to the success of the project that the academic and standards communities are well represented, as well as having industry experts like 1Spatial on board.”

Steven Ramage, Business Development Director of 1Spatial, added:

“We have worked with NMCAs for many years and see ESDIN as a great vehicle for our knowledge and expertise to be put to good use. For example, our ongoing work with LPS in Northern Ireland on the GeoHub NI has highlighted important aspects of SDI building, such as data access and security considerations. Our involvement in ESDIN also highlights our market-leading capabilities in the spatial data quality and generalisation arena worldwide.”

ESDIN is a 30-month project running from September 2008 until March 2011 and involves a number of NMCAs, academic institutions and technology providers, including 1Spatial. Many of the participants are members of EuroGeographics; the industry body that represents 52 NMCA organisations from 43 countries, and is also project managing ESDIN. Participants also include a number of existing 1Spatial customers who already use their data quality and generalisation solutions such as IGN Belgium, IGN France, KMS Denmark and Land & Property Services (LPS) of Northern Ireland.

The ESDIN website is now live at http://www.esdin.eu

*About INSPIRE
The European Union’s INSPIRE Directive came into force on 15th May 2007. INSPIRE stands for Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe and can be described as the European Spatial Data Infrastructure programme (ESDI). It creates a legal framework for the establishment and operation of an ESDI for the purpose of formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating Community policies at all levels, and providing public information. It lays down the 'ground rules' and arrangements which enable spatial data from separate digital databases to be combined seamlessly without undue difficulty, and for such datasets to be widely available and used, not just for viewing but also for comparison and analysis.

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