User feedback is always welcome, and where applicable implemented to enhance Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN) systems. The most recent release 4.40.5 of the AODN Portal Infrastructure – released on 15 August 2019, includes an enhancement to the AODN Portal Download process for Multi Web Feature Service (WFS) CSV dataset collection downloads.
WFS is a standard protocol for accessing and manipulating geographic features stored in a Geographic Information System (GIS) database over the Internet. The majority of non-gridded IMOS collections served by the AODN Portal have one WFS layer configured in Geoserver, however some collections have multiple WFS entries and therefore have different sets of layer configurations. These layers are available for users to access on Step 3 of the AODN Portal.
The download streaming process of CSV files from the AODN Portal commences in real time, within the browser being used, so file access is almost instant; however previously if the user chose multiple downloads from the same collection each file was titled the same. For example, the IMOS – AusCPR: Phytoplankton Abundance collection currently has 5 different WFS entries available from Step 3, and previously each file downloaded was simply titled IMOS_-_AusCPR#_Phytoplankton_Abundance. Now with the new enhancement, downloaded files for this same collection are uniquely titled including the name of the WFS layer specifically accessed e.g. IMOS_-_AusCPR#_Phytoplankton_Abundance-Higher_taxonomic_groups and IMOS_-_AusCPR#_Phytoplankton_Abundance-Derived_CPR_Indices.
So it is now much easier to identify which file is which, by simply looking at the file name without needing to open the file.
For more information on how to download data see the AODN UserGuide.
If you have any feedback you wish to provide, email us at [email protected]