Spatial Data in the Enterprise: Hibernate Spatial, Geolatte and Geomajas

Abstract

Spatial data is any data that is related to a location on the earth. In this talk we start with a theoretical overview of how spatial data is commonly represented. We then give an overview of various technologies for managing and processing spatial data in the Java eco-system, focussing on two products: Hibernate Spatial and Geolatte.

Hibernate Spatial is a generic extension to Hibernate for handling spatial data. It provides a standardized, cross-database interface to spatial data storage and query functions, and supports most of the functions of the OGC Simple Feature Specification. Hibernate Spatial is currently being integrated in Hibernate Core.

GeoLatte consists of a number of Java libraries for spatial applications. In contrast to most other (open-source) spatial data tools, Geolatte is mainly intended for integration with enterprise systems. The geolatte-geom library provides an OGC-compliant geometry model that is used throughout the other libraries. The geolatte-common library contains a generic data transformation framework, including basic transformations for serializing features to GeoJSON and a CQL (Common Query Language) parser that can translate an object filter to Hibernate Criteria. Other libraries include a REST-based featureserver, an efficient graph algorithm for fast routing, an embedded map server and an embeddable map renderer.

Geomajas, a GIS framework for the web, is an open source framework for build spatial applications. It focuses on efficient data delivery, security and performance. This is a highly plugable system which helps you to build powerful and user-friendly applications. Some examples for the plug-ins include caching, rasterizing, additional widgets, geocoder, PDF printing, reporting,...

Speakers

Karel Maesen

Karel is founder and director of Geovise which provides consultancy and application development services in the field of GIS. Geovise focuses on the integration of open source GIS technologies in enterprise applications and web sites. He is also founder of the Hibernate Spatial project and co-founder of the open-source project GeoLatte.

Peter Rigole

Peter co-founded Qmino in 2008, a company that focuses on the development of GIS solutions in open source projects such as GeoLatte and in custom solutions for businesses that rely on geographic information. Peter obtained his PhD in 2006 at the DistriNet department of the K.U.Leuven in the field of resource-aware distributed computing and is now active as a Java consultant in building advanced online GIS analysis tools.

Bert Vanhooff

Bert co-founded Qmino in 2008. Qmino provides Location Intelligence solutions and GIS consultancy services, mainly based on open source components such as GeoLatte. Bert obtained his PhD in Computer Science in 2008 at K.U.Leuven in the field of Model Driven Development. He is now active as a Java consultant for web/mobile GIS application development.

Joachim Van der Auwera

Joachim Van der Auwera is a software consultant with a strong focus on building quality software with lots of reusability and which is highly maintainable. He has been using Java for more than 10 years. In this period he was involved in both architecture and development of enterprise applications. He has a lot of experience with open source projects and is part of the three-headed dragon leading the development and architecture of the Geomajas GIS spatial data and web mapping framework. His achievements in the project include the security architecture, plug-in mechanism, API contract, documentation system etc. He has more than 10 years Java experience, mostly for enterprise projects.