Title of Paper: The Prototypical NASA HDF-EOS Web GIS Software Suite (NWGISS)

 

Principal Author:  Liping Di

 

Abstract: NASA EOS program is producing huge amounts of data in HDF-EOS format. Those data are valuable not only for global change research but also for resource and environmental management. GIS is one of the important tools for analyzing NASA's EOS data. Making HDF-EOS accessible to GIS through Internet will greatly enhance the interoperability and public use of EOS data. This paper describes a suite of web GIS software that serves HDF-EOS data to GIS clients based on Open GIS Consortium's (OGC) interoperability protocols. The software is called NASA HDF-EOS Web GIS Software Suite (NWGISS). NWGISS consists of the following components: a Web Map Server, a Web Coverage Server, a Catalog Server, a Web Coverage Client, and a tool component. Those components can work both independently or collaboratively. NWGISS can work with all three types of HDF-EOS data, including swath, grid, and point. Currently, the map server, compliant with OGC web mapping specification 1.0, has been developed and tested. The coverage server, which serves real data to GIS clients, has been developed and tested as a part of OGC WMT II activities. The catalog server will provide the catalog search capabilities to GIS clients. Both state and stateless catalog specifications of OGC will be implemented in NWGISS. The Web Coverage Client will enable GIS users to access multi-source data served by OGC compliant web coverage servers. The tool component consists of two-way translators between HDF-EOS and major GIS formats, as well as the CreateCapabilities program that automatically creates the XML capabilities descriptions from the metadata in HDF-EOS files. Both map and coverage servers have been used by NASA and other space agencies. The development of catalog server, coverage client, and the tool component is underway. NWGISS is free to data providers who want to serve HDF-EOS data to GIS clients.