[Esip-discovery] Datacasting custom elements proposal

[Maskey, Manil]

UAH has been using the Datacasting schema for various Air Quality
projects to wrap granule level KML for visualization.  We had come
across the need to use "custom elements" for describing project level
information at channel and item/entry level.   

 

Thank you for adding this to the Discovery Change Proposals.

 

Manil Maskey

Research Scientist

Information Technology & Systems Center

University of Alabama in Huntsville

 

 

 

From: esip-discovery-bounces at lists.esipfed.org
[mailto:esip-discovery-bounces at lists.esipfed.org] On Behalf Of Mccleese,
Sean W (388A)
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 4:19 PM
To: esip-discovery at lists.esipfed.org
Subject: [Esip-discovery] Datacasting custom elements proposal

 

As part of Andrew Bingham's Datacasting team, I would like to put forth
a proposal for DCP-2 (or beyond) to add support for custom elements in
Datacasting (or *casting) RSS & Atom feeds. 

 

The purpose of "custom elements" to enable data providers to define and
use domain-specific RSS/Atom elements from within the feed itself
without foreknowledge on the part of the user or RSS/Atom viewer. This
would enable, for example, a data provider of Datacasting RSS feeds
tracking hurricanes to define "Max Wind Speed" as a valid RSS/Atom item
element and then use that element within the feed. This would be
accomplished through a two-step process: channel-level definitions and
item-level use.

 

A channel level definition would define the name of the element, its
core data type and then units the element represents. Ex:

<datacasting:customEltDef name="maxWindSpeed" type="float" units="mph"
/>

 

This would inform the feed reader that the item "maxWindSpeed" is
present within the feed with a floating point number data type and that
the physical representation of the data is in MPH. Then, in order for
this data type to appear within the feed's item-level information, the
following example is illustrative:

 

(for RSS):

<item> ....

<datacasting:customElement name="maxWindSpeed" value="81.2"/>

</item>

 

(for Atom):

<entry>

...

<datacasting:customElement name="maxWindSpeed" value="81.2"/>

</entry>

 

Thus, when viewing the item/entry in the appropriate feed reader, the
"maxWindSpeed" element would be displayed along with all the other
relevant metadata (e.g. description, author, etc).

 

I'll add this to the Discovery Change Proposals page, but I wanted to
make sure to inform the list about this proposed idea. If you're
interested in seeing a working representation of this in action, check
out the GHRSST AMSR-E DatacastingRSS feed
(http://ghrsst.jpl.nasa.gov/datacasting/AMSRE-L2P-gen.xml) which can be
read with the Datacasting Feed Reader (http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov)

 

Thanks,

-Sean McClese

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