What's New in ERDAS APOLLO 16.3

Modernized RESTful APIs for Customization

ERDAS APOLLO is an extensible platform allowing users to build custom applications on top of the framework. ERDAS APOLLO Solution Toolkit, a Java-based SDK, was traditionally used to extend and customize ERDAS APOLLO.

With this release, we have migrated to ERDAS APOLLO RESTful (Representational State Transfer) API Framework. RESTful API uses simple HTTP requests rather than requiring Java programming experience. RESTful API is easier to integrate into existing software packages. The exposed ERDAS APOLLO web services are better integrated into various applications by allowing only those modules needed for a customer’s particular needs or workflows to be integrated.

The following API categories are available in the ERDAS APOLLO 16.0 EP03 release:

  • Crawl data into the catalog
  • Query/Delete/Edit catalog records
  • Create/Delete Aggregates
  • Generate Pyramids
  • Generate Thumbnails
  • Harvest external web services
  • Create/Manage/Delete OGC Services

ERDAS APOLLO API Framework is implemented through an Open API RESTful Documentation Specification known as Swagger. Documentation for these APIs is built directly into the product and can be reached at the URL http://<YourServer>/erdas-apollo/api-docs. Details about each API’s inputs and outputs, error codes, and schemas are provided.

Using Swagger, the developer can input JSON requests that communicate with the ERDAS APOLLO server and receive the requested information back as JSON.

ISO Metadata Update

Migration of ISO metadata to the latest standards began in the ERDAS APOLLO 16.0 EP01 release by creating new storage models to hold the latest ISO standard schemas. The 16.0 EP03 release delivers a more complete solution, including:

  • Updated to support 19115-3:2016 standard as well as ingest 19115-1 and 19115-2 documents
  • Migration tool to convert an aggregate of data to the latest ISO 19115-3:2016 version
  • Includes backward capability with ISO 19115:2003, 19115:2003 Cor.1:2006, 19115-2:2009, 19115-1:2014
  • Updated viewer with better styling that matches the latest metadata schemas

SCALABLE MULTI-THREADED CRAWLER

Up to now, the ERDAS APOLLO crawler has been performed in a serial manner. ERDAS APOLLO 16.0 EP03 release introduces a new “scalable crawler” to distribute jobs across available CPUs. This scaling works across cluster configurations as well. Current testing has shown 3x – 5x performance boost in time elapsed in seconds.

Other Updates

In the ERDAS APOLLO 16.0 EP03 release, additional updates include:

  • Continuing integration of underlying Core WMS
  • Catalog query performance improvements
    • General performance improvements with SQL Server (2x – 3x improvement)
    • Hibernate optimizations (2x – 7x improvement)
  • WMTS performance improvements
  • Platform updates to Java, Tomcat connector, Tomcat 8.5
  • Additional improvements in the Essentials tier
    • Stability improvements based on customer reported crashes
    • Improved file handle locking and performance for NFS datastores
    • DatabaseUpgrader speed improvements
    • Miscellaneous optimizations to dataset registration