DASH - Improvements

This page lists improvements that are need for DASH.

The Big Picture¶

When someone outside of CUAHSI uses DASH, they should be able to quickly understand via DASH the sources and methods of collection of the data.

We need tools in DASH that would make the data analyzable enough to know if we want to use it (appropriate graphing and searching capabilities).

DASH needs to be easy to use by typical researchers.

Wish List¶

Show more metadata for data series. Perhaps we can concatenate the variable code and the variable name. That should at least show that each data series is unique. (T. Whiteaker)
Show metadata about data series when you select a station; show investigator(s), link to a pdf. (K. McKee)
Graph multiple stations from one network together in 1 chart (limit to 5 or 10??)
Graph a stations from 1 network to stations from another network (2 axes).
SQL Queries into DB (see http://pine02.water.ca.gov/iwris/index.asp)
Allow selection of multiple stations from one data set and download all stations’ data
For data sources, show the name, contact info and links (especially for investigator data)
When you download azip file it should include the basic MyDB structure as defined in the ODM Tools doc, and should also include an XML with the rest of the metadata, as also defined in the ODM Tools doc.

Wendy Graham suggested that we integrate the HydroObjects Excel spreadsheet with DASH. This may reflect that the spreadsheet is quick and easy to use, but needs a map interface for finding sites. How can we make DASH as quick and easy to use?

Data Cart Download¶

The database from the data cart download needs serious improvement.

Some NWIS tables seem to be in there, even when I don't download NWIS data.
Metadata is missing for the most part.
If data from multiple layers are retrieved, only the last layer selected seems to come back.
I can't get a data cart with roughly 30,000 values or more (volume overflow error)
Once you download all or part of a datacart, a subsequent download attempt from that seemingly populated datacart results in an empty .mdb file.

Other Items¶

Speed (T. Whiteaker - This should be improved if you cache everything. I haven't tested this yet.)
Better basemap data (T. Whiteaker - ESRI has officially assigned one of their cartography experts to help with this. This should also improve the Speed. We hope to demo the new "Hydro Basemap" by mid-May.)
Unhook from databases; use web services
Expand Map Contents window by default (T. Whiteaker - You can set yours to be expanded by default. See Customizing DASH.)

Items Moved from HIS Central¶

Modifications to the existing DASH interface: ¶

Network metadata would be visible when doing the HIS identify and within the downloaded data. This would give contributing publishers the proper credit and provide clients with the information necessary to decide whether or not the data selected is really what they want.
The dropdown to choose an active network would be removed. HISIdentify requests would execute against all registered networks, as would the multi-select tool.
Map would be optimized for performance. (100% cached).

Future Enhancements:¶

Remove the need for pop ups. The current version of DASH has a lot of room for improvement, and cleaning up this interface will make it a more usable and successful application.
Ability to query for variables across networks (as is done when using HydroSeek). This approach, coupled with the concept of tagged vocabularies seems to be a much more natural flow for users searching for hydro data.
Spatial filtering of available networks. As the list of available networks grows, it would be useful to allow the list to be restricted to the current visible map extent.

These improvements for CentralHIS DASH would be useful in the regular DASH. We need a plan for DASH development. --Tim