The OGC/ISO coverage API standards: Heavy-lifting APIs for massive multi-dimensional data

Abstract

The concept of coverages, generally grasping multi-dimensional space/time varying phenomena, has received impressive attention among service implementers and operators. The biggest reason for this success is that coverages conveniently model datacubes, specifically in combination with powerful APIs such as the Web Coverage Service (WCS) with its datacube analytics language, Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS). OGC, ISO, and EU INSPIRE capitalize on coverages, and leading tools implement them. In this tutorial, we first briefly recapitulate the coverage model and simple access with WCS Core, address the status of OAPI-Coverages, and then proceed to datacube analytics with WPCS. Practical demos based on the EarthServer datacube federation serve to illustrate; participants can recap and modify most of the demos. Altogether, this workshop constitutes a unique opportunity for getting up to speed with coverages and datacubes.