FROST server

FROST is an open source server implementation of OGC Sensorthings API (STA), a modern data exchange standard for Sensor Data. Because the INSPIRE Soil model is based on Observations and Measurements, the Sensorthings API can be used to provide sensor download services, with the soil profile and horizons as FeatureOfInterest. Sensorthings API is generally easier to set up for administrators and easier to consume by clients then INSPIRE Soil data in GML. INSPIRE has adopted a good practice on Download services based on SensorThings API.

Kathi Schleidt has prepared a workshop on inspire data in sensorthings API. Also have a look at her sensor presentation in the 2022 edition of the training. After the 2022 training Kathy, together with colleagues from Fraunhofer IOSB, have put together a SoilThings implementaiton in STA. The experiment has proven to be an interesting use case, it has shown where flexibility has to be added in the STA model (these changes have been integrated in the recent 2.0 version of the O&M standard). The cool thing about this API is that it allows you to do queries like the following: give me all plots that contain a profile that contains a horizon on which pH H2O is measured; while the query syntax can be a bit daunting, the other existing technologies for provision (WFS and the new OGC API) would require 5 separate requests to do this. Links:

https://ogc-demo.k8s.ilt-dmz.iosb.fraunhofer.de/FROST-SoilThings/v1.1/SoilPlots?
    $count=true&$select=name&$filter=ObservedProfile/IsDescribedByHorizon/Datastreams/ObservedProperty/name%20eq%20%27pH%20H2O%27&
    $expand=ObservedProfile($select=name;$expand=IsDescribedByHorizon($select=name;$expand=Datastreams(
    $select=name;$filter=ObservedProperty/name%20eq%20%27pH%20H2O%27;$expand=ObservedProperty($select=name),%20Observations)))

Presentation at 2023 masterclass

At masterclass edition 2023 Kathi Schleidt and Hylke van der Schaaf presented Sensorthings API using Frost server.

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