[Mapserver-west] Another Introduction.

[Paul J Turner]

Howdy,

I'm employed by the Center for Coastal and Land-Margin Research (CCALMR) 
at the Oregon Health & Science University as a 'Research Programmer' 
where my primary duties are developing systems software in support of 
our realtime data acquisition network and circulation modeling efforts. 
This includes visualization tools for viewing model results, which is 
where Mapserver comes in.  Aaron Racicot, formerly of our group 
presently with Ecotrust and contributor to this list, led the charge in 
bringing Mapserver's capabilities to bear on several problems of 
interest to CCALMR researchers. I'm developing the next generation of 
tools based on Mapserver and his work - nothing accessible by the public 
right now. Here are some links showing some Mapserver output from one of 
the applications in development here, the locations are nameless as we 
are still calibrating.

http://www.ccalmr.ogi.edu/nefs/anim1109617470251311.gif 
http://www.ccalmr.ogi.edu/nefs/anim.gif 
http://www.ccalmr.ogi.edu/nefs/animsalt.gif 
http://www.ccalmr.ogi.edu/nefs/animvel.gif

Visualization codes write georeferenced GIF files which are handed to 
Mapserver and in a loop (PHP/Mapscript), Mapserver generates individual 
images. These images are combined by gifsicle into an animated GIF used 
for the Mapserver image. Simple but looks really neat and surprisingly 
quick to generate. Treating model output as a GIS layer (part of Aaron's 
work) and overlaying on layers like DOQs, DRGs, and NOAA charts has 
added considerably to our suite of visualization techniques.

Hardware - we have a hub/spoke modeling architecture. The  hub system 
has dual intel P4s, 2GB with ~3.2 TB of disk used for managing models, 
web server, Mapserver apps, and data storage. Surrounding the hub is a 
cluster of compute nodes running circulation models. Data generated by 
the models is concentrated on the hub system where local access to disk 
provides fast access  to data for visualization of model results. 
Providing a dynamic and timely end user experience is #1. 
Apache+Mapserver+PHP/Mapscript+Postgres+PostGIS, etc., the usual stuff.

BTW, anyone have a source/links for discharge data for rivers/streams 
flowing into Humboldt Bay? I've got the USGS realtime gage on the Mad 
River but I'm not familiar with the area. What other rivers should be 
considered? Historical data or climatology would be great.

Regards,

--Paul

Paul J Turner
OHSU-OGI-CCALMR