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National Geospatial Intitute data

National Geospatial Institute (NGI)

NGI portal

The National Geospatial Institute of South Africa has a portal available which can be used to obtain South African remotely sensed data. The data is freely available and can be accessed from here: http://www.cdngiportal.co.za/cdngiportal/.

NGI portal

The catalog provides a lot of data and functionality, but for now this quick guide is to show a user can get access to the Aerial photography in QGIS and Geoserver.

Aerial photographs

  • Click on the Browse ERDAS APOLLO Catalog tab to the left

NGI browse catalog

  • The Aerial imagery can be found at ROOT -> IMAGERY -> ORTHO_RECTIFIED -> WGS84 -> MOSAIC -> DIGITAL
  • Two folders are available:
  • 10K_TIF: This stores individual block tiles (e.g. 3319AA, 3319AB, etc.)
  • MOSAICS: Here a user can find the mosaicked rasters for South Africa. 50cm covers the entire SA, whereas 25cm only covers some provinces/areas

NGI aerials

  • Click on the MOSAICS folder
  • This should show the following on the catalog:

NGI aerials mosaic

  • Note that each dataset has a WMS link. This link can be used to add the data QGIS or Geoserver, or any other software which supports WMS

QGIS

Short section on how to add the 50cm Aerials mosaic to QGIS.

50cm Mosaic

  • In QGIS, go to Layer -> Data Source Manager
  • Click on the WMS/WMTS tab

NGI qgis data manager

  • Click New to add a new connection
  • Provide a desired Name
  • Here is the URL for the 50cm SA mosaic: http://apollo.cdngiportal.co.za/ApolloCatalogWMSPublic/service.svc/get?version=1.3.0&layers=RSA_MOSAIC_50CM_201612
  • Authentication should be set to No Authentication (data is freely available!)

NGI qgis WMS

  • Click OK
  • Click Connect
  • After the connection succeeded, the user should see something similar to the following:

NGI WMS connected

  • Click Add. This will add the layer to the QGIS canvas

NGI Aerials canvas

50cm tiles

Individual tiles can also be added (e.g. 3319AA). This is especially useful if a user wants to focus on a particular area of interest.

  • The Aerial tiles can be found at ROOT -> IMAGERY -> ORTHO_RECTIFIED -> WGS84 -> MOSAIC -> DIGITAL -> 10K_TIF
  • Select the folder with the desired tileset
  • The user can select an entire tileset (e.g. 3319), or a subset (e.g. 3319AA)
  • Copy the WMS link as in the previous section. In this case 3319 will be used as an example: http://apollo.cdngiportal.co.za/ApolloCatalogWMSPublic/service.svc/get?service=WMS&version=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetLayer&layers=3319_2
  • Add the data to the canvas
  • This would only now cover the selected tileset

Geoserver

Data from the NGI catalog can also be added to Geoserver as a store.

  • In the left panel, click on Stores
  • Click Add new Store

NGI geoserver store

  • Select WMS. Its at the bottom, under the Other Data Sources section
  • Set the parameters as follows:
  • WMS Source Name: As desired
  • Description is optional
  • Enabled to selected
  • Capabilities URL: http://apollo.cdngiportal.co.za/ApolloCatalogWMSPublic/service.svc/get?service=WMS&version=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetLayer&layers=RSA_MOSAIC_50CM_201612
  • User Name and Password should be left empty, as the data is freely available
  • Leave the remaining parameters on default

NGI geoserver WMS

  • Click Save
  • Click on Layers on the left pane
  • Click Add a new layer
  • Select the store that's been added for the NGI data
  • Select the RSA_MOSAIC_50CM_201612 layer and publish it

The Geoserver will now have the 50cm Aerial mosaic available for South Africa. As with QGIS, this can also be done only for certain tileset (e.g. 3319) if desired.