Frequently Asked Questions

This project was funded through September 2013, and is not currently funded, so there is no data manager at this time. This means that while the mapping and search tools do work, the data catalogs that they harvest may not be active.

What is the GLRI Project?

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is an initiative created by a task force of 11 federal agencies with a four year action plan (2010-2014) to addresses five urgent issues in the Great Lakes Region:

Learn more at the GLRI Project Page. SharedGeo's GLRI Collaborative Mapping project was funded the US EPA GLRI and the US FWS Habitat projects.


How to use image services?

A map service makes one or more spatial datasets available directly over the Internet. These services can be used by web mapping clients and tools such as MapServer and desktop clients such as ArcGIS. The Collaborative Mapping project has made OGC-compliant WMS services available for more than 30 terabytes of imagery and remote sensing data. See the list of available services on the Imagery Services Page.

The documentation for your web mapping or desktop client of choice will include instructions on how to load services, but we provide some instructions below for QGIS, Esri's ArcMap and MapServer.

ArcGIS

  1. Open ArcMap and click on 'Add Data'
  2. In the catalog select 'GIS Servers'
  3. Select 'Add WMS Server' and click 'Add'. The 'Add WMS Server' window will pop up.
  4. In the URL box, type in the service URL, for example https://hub.sharedgeo.org/datasets/GLRI/maps/imagery/loader_v2/WI_WROC_Orthos_2010.map?. You can add all the layers in the service by just clicking 'OK', or to select individual layers in the service, click on the 'Get Layers' button and select from the available layers in the service and then click 'OK'. Now you have added a connection to the service
  5. After you have clicked 'OK', you will see the data in the listed Add Data Dialog. Select the data and click 'OK'.
  6. The data will now be available in your dataframe.
See full documentation on including WMS in ArcMap

Quantum GIS (QGIS)

  1. Open QGIS and click on 'Layer', then 'Add WMS Layer'
  2. In the Layers tab, click on 'New'.
  3. Name your connection and in the URL box, type in the service URL, for example https://hub.sharedgeo.org/datasets/GLRI/maps/imagery/loader_v2/WI_WROC_Orthos_2010.map?.
  4. Click 'Connect'. You've set up the connection the server and you will see a list of the available layers.
  5. You can add all the layers in the service by highlighting the top layer just clicking 'OK', or to select individual layers in the service. Then click 'Add'.
  6. The data will now be available in your QGIS canvas.
See a good tutorial on including WMS in your QGIS project

MapServer

  LAYER # WMS map from GLRI Collaborative Mapping Project
    NAME         WI_DOQQs
    TYPE         RASTER
    OFFSITE      0 0 0
    STATUS       OFF
    CONNECTIONTYPE WMS
    CONNECTION "https://hub.sharedgeo.org/datasets/GLRI/maps/imagery/loader_v2/WI_WROC_Orthos_2010.map?"

    METADATA
      "wms_srs" "EPSG:3070"
      "wms_name" "DOQQs"
      "wms_server_version" "1.3.1"
      "wms_format" "image/jpeg"
    END

    PROJECTION
      "init=epsg:3070"
    END
  END # CoMap WMS image ends here
See full documentation on including WMS in your MapServer mapfile


How do I download image data?

Imagery and remotely sensed data are available for download via the CoMap client. To download data, do the following:

  1. Open CoMap
  2. Under the Base Maps tab, open the folder named "Images Available - Index Maps (downloadable)"
  3. Check the box index maps of the imagery you want to download, for example, "Stereo Border Imagery". You will see the bounding boxes of the imagery show up on the map.
  4. Zoom to your area of interest
  5. Click on the 'Search for Image Files' Button
  6. Use one of the methods, such as polygon, to draw your area or point of interest
  7. You will see a list of available images that intersection with your area of interest
  8. Select one or more images and click the 'Download Selected Images' Button