ES-DOC Technical Documentation¶
Welcome to the ES-DOC technical documentation. This site targets developers & other interested parties interested in getting upto speed with the technical side of the ES-DOC project. All facets of the diverse ES-DOC technical landscape are documented in medium to low level detail. If after reviewing the documentation you still have questions then please contact support@es-doc.org.
Overview¶
The ES-DOC eco-system of tools and services are founded upon 4 pillars:
- A set of controlled vocabularies
- A common ontology
- A set of specialisations
- A public archive
Each pillar is associated with a library and a set of applications and/or web-services. Collectively they form the foundations of the ES-DOC project.
Controlled Vocabularies¶
The ES-DOC eco-system revolves around controlled vocabularies, i.e. scoped collections of terms mandated by vocabulary authorities. Such authorities include ES-DOC, WCRP, ECMWF and Corpernicus.
Processing vocabularies from a diverse set of sources is problematic. To address this issue the ES-DOC team created a special purpose utility library called pyessv (Python Earth Science Standard Vocabularies). The primary task of pyessv is to normalise vocabularies and expose them to upstream tools & applications.
Ontology¶
Climatological scientists wishing to document their work in a highly-structured manner can leverage a special-purpose ontology, i.e. a formalised data model, called the CIM (Common Information Model).
Currently at version 2.1, the CIM has evolved over time based upon community feedback for the express purpose of documenting climatology experiments, simulation & models. The underlying schema is governed via a light-weight process that permits the ontology to evolve whilst still ensuring that associated tools & services are kept in sync.
The CIM schema is defined declaratively via a pythonic domain specific language. From the schema are forward engineered a wide range of assets such as mind-maps, code, documentation ... etc. Such assets are used by upstream tools & applications, e.g. online documentation search engine.
Specialisations¶
For scientists wishing to document their work in a loosely structured fashion, The ES-DOC project provides support for so-called specialisations. On a project by project basis, groups of scientists can come together to declare a hierarchy of topics whereby each topic is associated with a fine-grained set of questions.
As with the CIM, specialisations are declared by the community using a pythonic domain specific language. From the definitions are forward engineered assets that are in turn leveraged by upstream tools & applications, e.g. the specialisations web viewer.
Archives¶
Ultimately the ES-DOC eco-system serves to facilitate the creation of CIM compliant documentation. Once created they may be archived thereby being eligible for processing by upstream applications such as search engines & documentation viewers.
Libraries¶
Two core standalone python libraries, pyessv & pyesdoc, underpin ES-DOC the upstream tooling chain. They are at the core of the entire tooling eco-system.
Web APIs¶
Open web APIs have been built using both the libraries & archives. The APIs are consumed from both front-end and command line applications.
Front Ends¶
Several user facing front end applications are available to end users. They are constructed using javascript & CSS frameworks. They consume data pulled from the web API's.