[kepler-dev] DarwinCoreDataSource actor

[Dan Higgins]

Hi Deana,

    As you know, one missing item from the Kepler tools created for the 
GARP/ENM model was an actor for providing species location data  
dynamically as part of a workflow. We could do a Digir search under the 
data tab for species names and then drag the result to the workspace, 
but the process was manual, one species name at a time.

    Well, I modified the DarwinCoreDataSource actor and set up Kepler so 
that it now appears in the actor list (as well as the result of a search 
in the data tab). The actor now has an input port named 'speciesName' so 
that the Digir search can be done dynamically for a list of species. 
There is an example workflow in 
$KEPLER/workflows/test/DarwinCore_Test.xml. That workflow shows how a 
sequence of names (2 in the example!) can be passed to the DarwinCore 
actor and text files with specimen locations generated. Note that 
currently going through a list on many species will be slow (several 
minutes per species) due to the need to query many museum locations. 
Kansas is working on speeding this up. [Also, Kepler caches results, so 
that if the example workflow will be much faster after the initial 
execution.]

    By the way, the DarwinCoreDataSource no longer does a query 
immediately when dragged to the workspace. It now waits until the 
workflow starts execution before beginning.

    These actor changes have been checked into CVS and are available 
with the nightly build.

Dan

-- 
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Dan Higgins                                  higgins at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Ph: 805-893-5127
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Marine Science Building - Room 3405
Santa Barbara, CA 93195
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