Ciao a tutti,
lately I have been working on adding support in GeoServer for the TIME keyword in GetMap requests by updating the ImageMosaic plugin. The work is being performed on trunk but I might backport to 2.0.x, funding permitting, when it will be ready to roll.
The goals are as follows:
- Ability to select a certain number of granules from the mosaic index based on the actual values of a TIME attribute
- Make the TIME mechanism transparent if not needed
- Allow users to update the granule index over time adding new granules
The scenario I am trying to cope with is the following:
- I have a tool that does radar coverage predictions routinely (every 12 hours)
- Each prediction is specular to the others except for the time when it was generated (same georeferencing, same raster characteristics)
- We want to be able to show either the latest perdition or an old one
Now, some pictures to show that the work is proceeding.
I have taken 7 geotiffs for the BlueMarble series of 2004, from jan to Jul from
here since you can visually notice that over time as the Summer approaches the ice/snow moves north.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSlQ1fUsq_MB5t3xP388oqHSZ2wZH88DlwGy-Y_HCQhjUwEKjRx1oVWvTlvvgtTk6H1_HJqkpYqLhrWqAazN69pPB29I7u7kdDs9zJflyDqnHVDMRWixaIbQ2XRFOZtc6BypYilwSPJy0/s200/directory.png)
I have ingested it (Did I say that I am also adding a mechanism to automagically populate the time attribute based on the file properties, like name, metadata, etc.. :-) ?)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJPbCo9Iov4LqGfhvFSd-UFgEZW3lo6K6KTaxXpwvBtSilqOidgBCAS1W3ojgvV59-xzEuzk94E5ONN_sZ3drFy8uXOg6P5Vv-cQzX5EUnZ92Sf1ipTvWHMtDyLbbH6QGpzCoi2caMKno/s200/configuring.png)
Then I have started to send queries, for January
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9W1pBYLsmihq9siPDo5UlUCkPDZ1QOqHFFkFY1FiXEWltQ9XZjhpSkOLS6LjxBAd2aGhkHUnJgX517GG1679Qtxm_Ozn0T2qelwUoiDdcKZnSGthV0gNIHq_CojcBu3bX4smuenrmRoM/s200/2004Jan.png)
then for March
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjMqSa_N8bgzSvrBPmVoGDaepnIvpSpHkA6ZT3dUreqZP43Ae8rZOXB8NeA8J_uNfFVSvPE5z8jvDp_OJtqmFOtPtewpCDctlM8ZRZAMcCy3-yz04ZK8bexdpbC3Bxvr4GxUZmc_UDyxU/s200/2004March.png)
then for July
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXb08_XzcQD2EIbccMNZT2rLHfWJxbN-_bmZ6yyznHQyowcViAavSUvTK2S1rXm1nRjJ_HfIz2XGcyBgWRiZiOMYTFpOUx_S8ICWakyK93g1UYFJ1DhGXZARBnBnw2xs5c3ecfAySOv8g/s200/2004July.png)
Notice that we also support the "current" keyword to automatically get the latest raster available.
I think it is pretty neat and thanks to the GeoTools infrastructure it is not being too hard to implement.
The additional features we could add are quite many:
- Filtering via CQL on additional properties
- ELEVATION support
- Create an animation given a set of time instants
- Properly expose time as part of the WMS GetCap
- Wire TIME and ELEVATION support for WCS as well
If you are interested in funding this development or in adding more features I did not think of, please contacts
us!