This page contains a brief summary of the MapFeatures GIS capabilities

The Map

The default base layer of the system is the OSM map projected in lat/long (EPSG:4326). The shown extent of this map is saved locally when a user modifies it.

Tools

A number of additional controls have been added to the map, which can be selected from the icons beneath the zoom controls on the left hand side. Those that are highlighted in red have reduced functionality with public access:

• Export: Save the visible map to png or pdf
• Style Options: Controls to change the style (color, opacity and visiblity) of the geographic data layers shown on the map
• Save Project: Saves the structure of the existing map to the database, so a user can retrieve it at a later time or share it with other users.
• Select Area: Area selection of features on the map. Properties of this subset of data can be exported or charted using the  feature widget
• Draw feature tool: Draw points, lines or polygons directly onto the map. These features can be annotated with an unlimited number of name-value fields. The tool options (vertical dot icon to the right) allows you to save these drawn features as a separate layer that can be used at a later date.
• Add properties to feature tool: This also allows you to annotate existing features from loaded layers with additional fields. The tool options allow you to replace those existing layers datasets with your new data.
• Measurement tool: Measure the distances between points on the map.

Feature Selection

Selecting one (via a click on the map) or a number (via the 'Select Area' map tool) of features on a map will cause the selected features to be highlighted and the feature widget to appear on the right hand side of the screen. The selected feature widget can be minimised, or selections removed, by pressing the => or X icons at the top right.

In addition to the name of the layer that the selected objects are from, any additional property data that is attached to each object will be shown as additional columns in the table. For instance, in the example to the right, each feature has a name, an id and a type. This data can be extracted to a csv by pressing the 'Export to csv' button (the save icon), which should allow it to be used in spreadsheets outside of this system.

The data table also supports aggregation and grouping on those columns, with dropdowns allowing the user to select what type of aggregation they would prefer on a column-by-column basis, and the column can be grouped on using the down arrow icon next to the columns name.

The selected feature widget also allows you to examine the property data attached to features in chart format. A number of chart formats are supported:

• Scatter plots
• Bar charts
• Line charts
• Pie charts

Any combination of available columns can be examined. The produced charts can then be exported to png or pdf for use outside of this system.

Layers

The basis of the MapFeatures system is the layer. This is a dataset of related geographic information that is to be plotted on a map. Each user has their own set of layers, consisting of those that they have created, and those that have been created by other users and shared with them. Users can create, edit, delete and share layers within the layers pane.

Public access has no layer-level capabilities, and can only access layers that are part of projects when both the project and the layer have been granted public access.

Supported layer types

The following data sources can be used to imported a dataset into the system

• WFS: Support for external WFS systems using basic or token based authentication. MapFeatures supports paging for those data layers that contain significant amounts of points.
• WKT/WKB: Geometries can be imported directly as text or bytes in the WKT/WKB format
• KML: Geometries can be imported as KML formatted text
• GeoJSON: Geometries can be imported as a GeoJSON formatted block of text

Any additional properties that are supplied by the WFS GetFeature request, or imported with the WKT/KML/GeoJSON geometry can be accessed from the map when features  are selected

Available layers

As a user may have access to many more layers than they would want to show on a map, the available layers page allows the user to specifically select only those layers they want to show onscreen. This has the additional advantage of reducing the amount of data that needs to be downloaded.

Projects

Projects are the means by which map layouts can be shared amongst users or with the public.

When a user has generated a map layout that they wish to keep or share, and the press the 'Save Project' button  on the map, a project is created that contains the layers and style options that they have generated.

Users can then choose to recreate the map layout by selecting the save project from the projects page and pressing 'Use' or to edit the project. This will allow them to remove or restyle layers, to allow other users to access the project, or to share it with the public.

Projects that are shared with the public in this way are available via the public access login. Though please note that a user also has to grant the public access user access to the layers in the project. Otherwise a seemingly empty project will be shared with the public!

Teams

MapFeatures supports the idea of a teams: groups of users who wish to share projects and layers in common.

Each member of a team has a different level of permissions for that team: some users will have full administration rights, others may just have the rights to read or write layers, others to add or remove users to the team. Teams also have children, and the rights members have in a parent team extend to the child teams.

Users (with the right permissions) can add the layers to a team. This will allow all suitable users in that team to use a layer when they are creating a map project of their own, and these layers will be visible on the 'available layers' page.