For each of these the WFS request and response is in the Australian EarthResourceML standard. The original databases in each survey are not altered and the middleware layer (Geoserver 2.0 with application schemas) maps from the private database schema to the community agreed EarthResourceML – including structure and vocabulary translation when those are agreed.

Any client application, and the AuScope Portal is just one possible client, can thus access the data holdings of each survey as if they were one national data service, and you don’t need to copy the data nor deal with data conversion as its done at the source.

Some of the other services don’t have this functionality but AuScope is working with the state surveys to make more data available in this form and thus reduce the burden of access to national data sets.

It’s a neat trick I think I need to go work out for myself, and something I’d like to see done more often. You could probably have taken it even further by halving the height of the top banner, or perhaps doing it as an alpha overlay.

Another subtle thing this app does right is start with Satellite ONLY, no overlays. Being a Geo app it correctly factors out political boundaries right from the start.

In summary, a great and very workmanlike aggregation service.

Apart from some polishing, it does a great job.