CatMDEdit is a metadata editor tool that facilitates the documentation of resources, with special focus on the description of geographic information resources. It is an initiative of the National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN), which is the result of the scientific and technical collaboration between IGN and the Advanced Information Systems Group (IAAA) of the University of Zaragoza with the technical support of GeoSpatiumLab (GSL).
The tool has been implemented in Java and has the following features:
Multi-platform (Windows, Unix). As it has been developed in Java and the storage of metadata records is managed directly through the file system, the application can be deployed in any platform with the minimum requirement of having installed a Java virtual machine.
Multilingual. The application has been developed following the Java internationalization methodology. Nowadays, there is a Spanish, English, French, Polish, Portuguese and Czech version. Contributors are welcome for customization to other languages.
Definition and management of different metadata repositories (repositories may also contain data files), including the selection and filtering of metadata records stored in each local metadata repository.
Metadata edition in conformance with "ISO19115. Geographic Information - Metadata" standard (ISO19115:2003/Cor 1 2006, ISO/TS 19139:2007 XML encoding). Edition interfaces adapted to different metadata profiles:
ISO19115 comprehensive metadata model.
ISO19115 Core metadata for geographic datasets.
NEM ("Núcleo Español de Metadatos") metadata profile. NEM is a recommendation defined by the Spanish National Geographical High Board ("Consejo Superior Geográfico"). This subset includes all the elements defined in the “ISO19115 Core metadata for geographic datasets”.
INSPIRE implementing rules for metadata and their correspondence with the standard ISO19115. This profile has been customized to meet the requirements set up in the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in the Community (INSPIRE).
WISE metadata profile. This profile has been customized to meet the guidelines for metadata in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and the development of the “Water Information System for Europe” (WISE).
Metadata edition in conformance with the Dublin Core metadata standard (ISO 15836). This tool follows the guidelines for expressing Dublin Core metadata using the Resource Description Framework.
Customization of the tool to support new standards and metadata profiles according to user needs.
Automatic metadata generation for some data file formats: Shapefile, DGN, ECW, FICC, GeoTiff, GIF/GFW, JPG/JGW, PNG/PGW.
Automatic metadata generation for spatial series. CatMDEdit allows the automatic creation of metadata for collections of related resources, in particular spatial series arisen as a result of the fragmentation of geometric resources into datasets of manageable size and similar scale.
Exchange of metadata records according to different standards in XML and RDF:
XML format in compliance with the ISO19139 technical specification. (ISO19115 metadata).
XML format in conformance with the standard CSDGM (Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata), defined by U.S. FGDC.
RDF format according to the encoding rules for Dublin Core in RDF.
XML format according to the SDIGER - Dublin Core Metadata Application Profile for geographical data mining.
XML format according to the XML-Schemas established in the OGC Catalogue Services Specification for the HTTP protocol binding (Catalogue Services for the Web, CSW).
Presentation of metadata records using different look&feels in HTML and Excel:
For CSDGM: FGDC HTML (es, en), FAQ HTML (en), Geography Network HTML (en), ESRI HTML (es, en).
For ISO19115: HTML (es, en, fr, pl, pt), Excel (format used for both input and output files) and MIGRA (Spanish standard for geographic information exchange).
For Dublin Core: HTML (es, en, fr, pl, pt).
Additional tools to facilitate the edition of metadata:
Contacts repository tool. It allows the reuse of contact information (e.g. name, address, telephone …) of organizations and individuals, which must be filled in several metadata elements. Thanks to this component, the contact information about a responsible party is inserted only once and used whenever it is required.
Thesaurus tool. It enables metadata creators to use thesauri in order to fill in some metadata elements. The use of controlled keywords facilitates the mapping between a selected vocabulary and a large collection of records.
On-line help about the metadata elements defined in a specific metadata profile: definitions, maximum occurrence, examples…. The user manual is also accessible on-line in PDF format.
Metadata validation according to the mandatory elements defined in each metadata profile.
Visualization of some data file formats such as Shapefile, ECW, GeoTiff, GIF, JPG, BMP, PDF, HTML, ...
Additional tools for the selection of bounding box coordinates: coordinate conversion between different coordinate reference systems, and graphic selection of coordinates over maps, allowing the user to add new maps to the selection.
Additional tools for the graphic selection of the geographic extent: polygon selection on a map.
Additional tools for the graphic location of the data: generation of RSS and geoRSS.
Integration of gvSig to show geographical data.
More details about CatMDEdit can be found in the following presentation. You can also have a look at this video for the integration with GIS tools.
Click here to download CatMDEdit through SourceForge.net.
In case of referencing CatMDEdit tool in research reports and publications, please use the bibliographic citations listed here.
Nogueras-Iso J, Barrera J, Gracia-Crespo F, Laiglesia S, Muro-Medrano PR (2008). Integrating catalog and GIS tools: access to resources from CatMDEDit thanks to gvSIG. In 4as Jornadas Internacionales gvSIG, 3-5 December 2008. Valencia, Spain
Nogueras-Iso J, Zarazaga-Soria FJ, Muro-Medrano PR (2005). Geographic Information Metadata for Spatial Data Infrastructures - Resources, Interoperability and Information Retrieval. Springer Verlag, ISBN: 3-540-24464-6 .
Zarazaga-Soria FJ, Lacasta J, Nogueras-Iso J, Torres MP, Muro-Medrano PR (2003). A Java Tool for Creating ISO/FGDC Geographic Metadata. In Geodaten- und Geodienste-Infrastrukturen - von der Forschung zur praktischen Anwendung. Beiträge zu den Münsteraner GI-Tagen 26./27. Juni 2003, pp 17-30. IFGIprints 18, Münster, Germany.
CatMDEdit is an initiative of the National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN), which is the result of the scientific and technical collaboration between IGN and the Advanced Information Systems group (IAAA) of the University of Zaragoza with the technical support of GeoSpatiumLab (GSL).
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Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN Spain) |
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University of Zaragoza Computer Science and Systems Engineering Department Advanced Information Systems Laboratory (IAAA) |
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GeoSpatiumLab S.L. |
The tool has been partially supported through the following projects:
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IDEE project (Infraestructura de Datos Espaciales de España). Agreement of collaboration between the National Geographic Institute of Spain and the University of Zaragoza for the creation of the site for the Spanish Spatial Data Infrastructure and software for related activities. |
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SDIGER project (A cross-border inter-administration Spatial Data Infrastructure to support WFD information access for Adour-Garonne and Ebro River Basins). A pilot project on the implementation of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE), funded by the Statistical Office of The European Communities (Eurostat) and supervised by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). |
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EURADIN (European Addresses Infrastructure) aims at constituting a Best Practice Network in order to promote the European Addresses harmonization regarding the definition, registration and access to the European Addresses Data. The results shall be used as a reference for all European Member States to fulfil the INSPIRE recommendations with respect to addresses. EURADIN partnership gathers 30 partners from 16 different European countries: Germany, Denmark, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Netherlands, Austria, United Kingdom, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Spain. |
The complete list of entities that have contributed to the CatMDEdit tool is the following:
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CNIG (Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica) |
(SDIGER) |
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Direcção Regional de Geografia e Cadastro Secretaria Regional do Equipamento Social e Transportes – Região Autónoma da Madeira
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(Portuguese translation) |
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Eurostat (Statistical Office of the European Communities) |
(SDIGER) |
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IGN France International |
(SDIGER, French translation)
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Institut Géographique National (IGN France) |
(SDIGER) |
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Institute
of geoinformatics, VSB-TU Ostrava |
(Czech translation) |
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Joint Research Centre Institute of Environment and Sustainability Spatial Data Infrastructures Unit |
(SDIGER) |
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Tecnologías para Infraestructuras de Datos Espaciales (TeIDE) |
(TeIDE) |
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Universidad Jaume I de Castellón. Departamento de Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos (LSI) Grupo de Información Geográfica |
(Member of TeIDE) |
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Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Departamento de Ingeniería Topográfica y Cartografía Grupo MERCATOR de Tecnologías de la Geoinformación |
(Member of TeIDE) |
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WOJEWÓDZKI OŚRODEK DOKUMENTACJI GEODEZYJNEJ I KARTOGRAFICZNEJ W KATOWICACH |
(Polish translation) |
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University of Zaragoza Computer Science and Systems Engineering Department Advanced Information Systems Laboratory (IAAA) María de Luna, 1 E-50018 Zaragoza. (Spain) Phone: (34) 976 762134 Fax: (34) 976 761914 |
The CatMDEdit library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Last update: 08 September 2009
