Technology
Groundwork runs on the open-source libraries and OGC standards this page names.
Built on the FOSS4G stack
The libraries and standards in this section are the ones used across production GIS elsewhere.
OpenLayers
Rendering, interaction and projection handling all run on OpenLayers, the open-source map engine.
WFS & WFS-T
Full transactional editing (Insert, Update, Delete) against QGIS Server and other WFS-T servers, over GML and Filter Encoding.
QGIS project files
Layers, symbology, field aliases and display fields load straight from a .qgs project, with no separate config format.
SLD & QML
Both OGC and QGIS styling formats are supported, converted through GeoStyler into a common style model.
proj4
Coordinate reference systems are read from the source and reprojected automatically, using proj4.
GeoJSON
Static sources load as GeoJSON, and any layer can be exported back out as GeoJSON.
STAC
Groundwork's internal catalogue model. Every source is normalised onto STAC, and external catalogues connect directly to it.
Vector basemaps
OpenFreeMap by default, rendered with ol-mapbox-style, or any vector or raster tile source you configure.
Built on Portolan Spec v0.1.0
Groundwork adopts Portolan, an open standard for cloud-native geospatial catalogues, as its own catalogue standard, so a catalogue connected through it works the same way in any Portolan-aware tool.
Portolan is a strict profile of STAC for catalogues published as plain files on object storage, with fixed formats, roles and metadata so any conforming reader can open any conforming catalogue.
Role-based assets
Data, visual and style assets are read by role, which is Portolan's own addressing.
Registry media types
GeoParquet, PMTiles and COG are each published under Portolan's registered media type.
Cloud-native formats
Portolan's three required formats all load: GeoParquet reads and lists features, PMTiles and COG render straight as map layers.
rel: "child" crawling
A published catalogue often splits every collection into its own document. Groundwork walks those links breadth-first to load it whole.
Bbox hygiene
WGS84 bboxes are reprojected and held to the spec's own range, down to a single-point extent where south equals north.
Tracked against source
Portolan is pre-1.0 and moves fast. Groundwork's compliance rules cite the spec's own files, and are re-checked on every version bump.
Read more
See the Administrator Guide to connect a WFS server or QGIS project.