Bollettino di Geofisica Teorica ed Applicata Vol. 54, n. 4, pp. 385-390; December 2013

DOI 10.4430/bgta0109

385

“GOCE Italy” website and its evolution as a toolbox for data exploitation

M. Martino, M. Montironi and F. Solitro

ALTEC S.p.A., Torino, Italy

(Received: January 7, 2013; accepted: July 13, 2013)

ABSTRACT Thepublicwebsiteof“ESAEndorsement-GOCEItaly”projectprovidesinformationabout the project’s objectives and its organization, scientific topics and, in general, abouttheGOCEmissionanditsapplications.The“GOCEItaly”websitehasbeenconceivedasa tool todisseminate theprojectobjectivesandresults to theexternalworld. Also, it provides a virtual dashboard, where it is possible to insert eventannouncementsandrelevantpublications,andacentral“repository”fortheprojectsnewsandpublications.Aspecialapplicationnamed“GOCEDatadownloader”hasbeenaddedtothesite,whichallowsforretrievingsomedataresultsgeneratedbythemissionpipeline.

Key words: GOCEItaly,toolbox,downloader.

© 2013 – OGS

1. Introduction

This article deals with the design and development of the public website of “ESAEndorsement-GOCEItaly”project(brieflyidentifiedinthefollowingofthearticlesimplywiththetermGOCE-Italy).

The web site (Fig. 1) available at internet address www.goceitaly.asi.it is finalized to thedissemination.ItisprovidedbothinItalianandEnglishlanguages.

2. Site overview

Themainwebsite’sfunctionistoprovideInternetvisibilitytothe“GOCE Italy” project. TheGOCEItaly”project. The.Thewebsiteprovidesdescriptionsof“GOCE Italy” group organization and focus and acts also as aGOCEItaly” group organization and focus and acts also as agrouporganizationandfocusandactsalsoasacentralrepositoryforproject’sPublicationsandNews.

Ithasbeenorganizedintothefollowingsections:• home:briefdescriptionoftheproject;• focus:descriptionofactivitygoalsandprojectorganization;• partners: information about scientific teams involved in the project;• publications:repositoryforpublicarticlesabouttheproject;• contacts:userinteractivesectionenabledtosendcommentsorrequestinformationtoGOCE

partners;

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• K-12:educationalsection;• News&Events:repositoryforNewsandEventsfromGOCE’sworld;• topics:informationaboutalldifferenttopicsinvolvedinGOCEproject.Moreindetailthey

are:º GOCEmission;º Geodesy;º Solidearth;º Geology;º Oceanography;º PODandtidemodels;º Geoidlocalapplications.

3. Technical aspects

The website back-end is set up on a Content Management System (CMS).This type ofapplicationseparates thegraphicalpart (basedon theconceptof templates) fromthecontent

Fig.1-GOCEwebsitehomepage.

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part(storedinadatabase);inaddition,itisdesignedtostoredocumentsaswellasanytypeoffiles.

Whenthefront-endiscalledontoserveapagefromabrowser,itgetsthecontentforthatpagefromthedatabase,looksatthetemplatefilestoseehowitshouldbelaidout,buildsthepageaccordinglyandsendsthepagetothebrowser.

There are different open source projects based on such architecture. CMS examples areDrupal,Wordpress,Joomla.

After a benchmark evaluation of the three different alternatives conducted by theAltecteam, Joomla was selected as the one that was closer to the project objectives. Joomla is Joomla iswritten in PHP, uses Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) techniques and software designpatterns, stores data in a MySQL database, and includes features such as page caching, RSSfeeds,printableversionsofpages,newsflashes,blogs,polls,search,andsupportforlanguageinternationalization.

Moreindetailsitprovidesthefollowingbenefit:• high customization: source code (PHP language) can be modified to fit user’s needs;• security:to-dateprojectisalwaysdeployedwithnewestsecuritypatches;• standardization:JoomlaisW3Ccompliant;• templatecustomization: Joomla templatesare fullycustomizableand the syntaxused in

ordertomodifythemismucheasierthantheoneusedbyitscompetitors.Thewebsitehasbeenalsoconfiguredinsuchawaytoseparatethe“systemadministration

tasks” from the “content management tasks” thus allowing a “non-expert” personnel to bedelegatedtouploadinformationlikedocumentsandnewstotheweb.

4. GOCE data downloader

During the project development, it came up the idea to expand the capabilities providedby the website with the addition of a more technical section dedicated to the scientific datadissemination to GOCE users authorized personnel of a selection of latest produced GOCEmission data product.These data are the result of the ground processing performed by thePolitecnicoofMilano.

A dedicated web based application, named “GOCE data downloader” has been developedandmadeaccessibledirectlyfromthemainmenuofGOCEItalyinternetsite.

Theapplication(Figs.2and3)allowstoretrievedataoutputofGOCEspace-wiseprocessingintermsofgridsofV[potentialvaluesin(m2/s2)]andVrr[2

ndradialderivativesin(1/s2)].Theavailable grid resolution is 0.5° x 0.5°. Local patches of these global grids can be used as‘observations’togetherwiththeirfullerrorcovariancematrix.

TheGOCEdatadownloaderhasbeenwrittenusingPHP-5andHTML-5; itparsesGOCEdata grids and retrieves values related to the selected latitude and longitude range.The maincapabilitiesare:

• interfacethedatarepository;• performdataquery;• retrievedataindifferentformat;• managedatasetversionsintherepository.

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GOCEdatadownloaderoutputconsistsinareportpagethatallowsdownloadingthreefiles:• a header file, that contains details of the requested data, such as data type, latitude,

longitude,andsoon;• adatafile,thatcontainsrequestedGriddata;• adataerrfile,thatcontainsstandarddeviationoftherequestedGriddata;• adataTCfile,thatcontainsthetopographiceffectoftherequestedGriddata.All thefilesare incsvformat (commaseparatedvalue),asimpleandstandard text format

for table-likevalues,whichcanbeeasily imported in analysis tools (Excel,Matlab, etc.).Anexampleoftheoutputofoneofthisfile(firstrowistheheaderofthefile)isshowninFig.4.

Fig.2-Selectionareafordatadownload.

Fig. 3 - Download of the generated files.

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lambdaGrid(rad), phiGrid(rad), VGrid(m2/s2) -0.34470, 1.16501, 60005929.7578932 -0.33598, 1.16501, 60005929.8536851 -0.32725, 1.16501, 60005929.7822324 -0.31852, 1.16501, 60005929.5412407 -0.30980, 1.16501, 60005929.1292562 -0.30107, 1.16501, 60005928.5457729 -0.29234, 1.16501, 60005927.7913017

5. The “GOCE Italy” toolbox as an evolution GOCE data downloader

Thetodayimplementedcapabilitiesrepresentsonlyaninitialprototypeofapossibletoolboxapplication.Thisprototypecanevolveprogressivelytoincludenewcapabilities.

A first step in this evolution has been proposed at the end of the project for customerevaluation,consistingin:

• serverseparationbetweentheGOCEDataDownloaderandtheprojectwebsites;• definition of dedicated loading procedures to allow authorized end-users (with proper

privileges)toupdatetheGOCEdatabasewithnewdatasets;• definition of the user authentication and authorization procedure and the associated

approvalprocess,toallowamoreextendeddisseminationofthedata;• definitionof theauthenticationmethodtobeusedforaccessing thesitebygenericend-

users,includingpoliciesforset/resetofuserpasswords;• developmentofadditionalandcomplexdata typedownloadbasedonuserqueries,with

additionofserversidedataprocessingcapabilities,ifneeded.ThenfurtherstepscanbeconsideredthatcouldleadtothedefinitionofaGOCEToolbox.

Themainelementsinitsarchitecturedefinitionare:• extension of the central DB repository to include in a more structured way the global

EGM08model,additionalandextendedGOCEdataelaboratedbyPoliMi,insituavailabledata,userspecificdatabase,etc.;

• systeminteractionsandintegrationwithexternalDBorapplication/toolbox;• advancedusergraphicalinterfacetomakeeaseandimmediatethedataqueryandretrieval,

dataprocessingandcorrelation,integrationwithuserapplications;• possibilitytoincludeproceduresfordataelaborationandanalysis,basedonthealgorithms

orsoftwaremodulesdevelopedbytheusers;• advancedoutputdataandfinalproductsgraphicalvisualization.A few applications for the development of GOCE toolbox, in support to engineering

applicationsandcivilprotectionactivities,havebeenidentified:• theuseofgeoidforanaccurateestimationoforthometricheightsstartingbytheellipsoid

ones;• arefinementoftheprocedureforamoreaccurateestimationofaverylocalgeoids;

Fig. 4 - Example of an output file.

• aprocedurefor the improvementofgeoidestimation inareasnotcoveredbyongroundgravimetricdata;

• arefinementoftheprocedureforamoreaccuratelocalestimateofthegravityfield;• implementation of a gravimetric inversion method for the refinement of the geologic

modelrelevanttoaselectedareaofPiedmont.

Fromanarchitecturalpointofview,severalfeaturesofthistoolboxcanbeprovidedthroughstandardwebbasedapplication.Formoreadvancedgraphicalandprocessingneeds,localuserapplications could be necessary to benefit of higher local computer performances (possiblydevelopedwithaplatformindependentapproach),evenifcontinuoussynchronizationwiththecentralDBforgetting the latestdataset informationordistributedDBinformationcollectionhastobemaintained.

Corresponding author: Filomena Solitro ALTEC S.p.A. Corso Marche 79, 10146 Torino, Italy Phone: +39 011 74 30 079; fax: +39 011 74 30 064; e-mail: filomena.solitro@altecspace.it.

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