Upload and Create a Data Set

After logging in, you are ready to upload and create your first data set. Select Data from the menu at the top of the application and then press the Upload button at the bottom of the page to begin creating a new data set in the system (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Click Upload to create your first data set

You will be forwarded to the Create a new Dataset screen (Figure 4). Here you can enter the details about your data set such as the name, land cover type and the description. LACO-Wiki currently supports three different land cover types for your data set:

1. Categorical: Also called thematic, discrete or classified data, categorical data can be in vector or raster format to represent discrete information. Examples of categorical data are land cover or land use maps such as the pan-European CORINE land cover data set, the Urban Atlas as well as global land cover maps such as ESA’s CCI, GlobCover, etc.

2. Continuous: Continuous data represent phenomena such as percentages, elevations or densities such as the Copernicus high resolution impervious layer, forest density or maps of population density.

3. Background: In addition to base maps from Google Maps and Bing Maps, you can add your own background layers to aid in the validation process. Examples of such a data set would be an orthophoto of your study area.

The final step is to add shape files or GeoTiffs to your new data set. Currently the following file types are supported:

1. Support file types: Shape (.shp, .shx, .dbf, .prj) and GeoTiff (.tif, .tiff)

2. Supported spatial reference systems/projections: WGS84 or ETRS89 LAEA Add your files to the data set by clicking the Select Files button and manually select them using the file browser or simply drag-and-drop them into the area bounded by a dotted line (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Adding files to the new data set

Unsupported file types are shown in red. Unknown file types are shown in grey. You can remove these files from the list by clicking the trash bin icon on the left.

Once you are happy with your selection, press the Create Dataset button to start the upload process and create your first data set in LACO-Wiki.