README

Spatial Temporal Oceanographic Query System (STOQS)

STOQS is a geospatial database web application designed for providing efficient acccess to in situ oceanographic data across any dimension - e.g., retrieving a common parameter from all measuring platforms in a specific area over a specific span of time. STOQS complements other data management technologies such as NetCDF and OPeNDAP by providing an ability to index data retrieval across parameter and spatial dimensions in addition to the a priori indexed coordinate dimensions in NetCDF. It also provides a functional bridge between NetCDF and Geographic Information Systems technologies.

After installation, data is loaded into STOQS from a variety of data sources, including OPeNDAP data sets, other relational databases, and flat files.
Products are delivered within the STOQS User Interface and in a variety of formats, including KML, via REST-style web requests.

Installing

If you wish to install the system from scratch you will need the source code revision control software Mercurial which can be installed in CentOS with "yum -install mercurial" as root. Then checkout the software from Google Code with:

cd ~/dev
hg clone https://<your_google_account>@code.google.com/p/stoqs/ stoqshg

Note: The source checkout instructions on the Google Code site do not include the last argument, in which case the software will be checked out into a 'stoqs' directory. This can be confusing as there is another 'stoqs' directory in the tree. For this reason we check it out to a 'stoqshg' directory to indicate that it is a Mercurial clone. To continue with the installation follow the instructions starting in the PREREQUISITES file which will be in your stoqshg directory.

Operation

If you wish to load data into an already installed STOQS server you can start with reading the LOADING file for the instructions for creating a database, setting data sources, and writing a loader script.

Further information is in these files:

PREREQUISITES - System level requirements, e.g. Postgis, Django, Python modules
INSTALL       - Steps to install the Django stoqs application
DEVELOPMENT   - Instructions on running a development environment
PRODUCTION    - Instructions on setting up a production environment
LOADING       - Loading your data
TIDBITS       - Miscellaneous tips, fixes, and examples for using STOQS
LICENSE       - GNU General Public License text, how this software is licensed

The stoqs project web site has a wiki with links to presentations and periodic feature updates. The stoqs-discuss list in Google Groups is also a good place to post questions or any sort of comments about STOQS.

-- Mike McCann MBARI 23 May 2013