[udig-devel] uDig "pre-filtering" for WFS layers...

[Christopher Stolte]

Hello,

I am a software engineer in the geoscience community that has spent time 
working with GeoServer and uDig, among other technologies, to find 
interoperable and scalable ways of displaying map-based scientific data 
to research scientists.  My working group has created and deployed 
proof-of-concept WMS/WFS services, which provide some very useful 
functionality.  I would like to find out more about the [possible] 
existence of client features that would apply a filter when adding a WFS 
layer (for example), so that only a subset of the layer is actually
loaded/rendered up front?  We deal with datasets that are sometimes 
quite large, and are particularly interested in finding a way to limit 
the layer according to the properties it represents.  Note that while
applying a filter after the layer has loaded is also a nice [currently 
existing] feature, I'm wondering about applying the filter before it 
loads, to limit which points load at all.

I have looked through the documentation and email archives, and have 
found references to programming solutions (i.e. extending or modifying 
the codebase).  Does uDig have any plans to incorporate this kind of 
functionality into a release candidate?  Alternatively, if I've missed 
this somewhere in the current app, could someone please point it out?

Thank you in advance for any help or insight here.

Regards,
Chris Stolte

-- 
Christopher Stolte | Software Engineer
UNAVCO, Inc. 6350 Nautilus Dr. Boulder, CO
303-381-7483 | stolte at unavco.org