**Title:** Advanced Open Geospatial^©^ Web Technologies for
Multi-Disciplinary Access to Scientific Data

**Statement of Problem:** The Open Geospatial^©^ Consortium (OGC) has
developed a broad complex of specification and implementation for the
interoperable publication and sharing of geospatial data Developed
originally in support of commercial applications, the science community
is now capitalizing on these technologies to support the *scientific*
publication and analysis of geospatial data. The Web Mapping Server
(WMS) standard is the most widely used protocol and is supported by the
USGS's National Atlas. While the WMS standard has revolutionized data
accessibility for viewing raster datasets, it is well recognized that
the limitation of the supported formats (jpeg, gif, and png) are not
optimal for scientific analysis. These formats are generally limited to
8bit and cannot maintain the true scientific representation of the
original data.

**Work Strategy: *This project would undertake working with the OGC to
help ratify, implement, and test Web Coverage Services (WCS) and Web
Processing Services (WPS) for the raster domain.*** The WCS protocol
will add the ability to better **support scientific analysis for
web-streamed raster data sets**. The WPS protocol, which should co-exist
with a WCS, will help to standardize server-side processing, for example
allowing the client application to request a topographic hillshade or
slope map from a digital elevation model (DEM) or user-defined band
ratios from multi-spectral imagery. These activities will be immediately
useful as a standard means that any scientist can employ to access the
key data sets we will host. But most importantly, a prototype capability
and OGC standards will be made available that can be shared to other
USGS facilities and with the greater geospatial user community.

Accordingly, our major **research objectives** would be:

i\) Create prototype WCS and WPS servers to host selected Earth, Mars
and Lunar raster data sets.

ii\) Implement and deploy a simple prototype web client to exploit these
datasets and create a public test-bed for the capabilities of the OGC
technologies.

iii) Work with the OGC to further define, test and help ratify both
     protocols.

iv) When completed, the team will provide documentation, software and
    technical support for other USGS facilities and the greater
    geospatial user community.

**Relevance and Impact:** The availability and accessibility of
geospatial science data products to all members of the science community
has greatly improved over the past decade. In particular, the
incorporation of World Wide Web access to the data archived in the
USGS's National Atlas and the USGS's Seamless data distribution site has
revolutionized the data discovery and retrieval process. The National
Atlas is generally viewed as a method for data discovery and browsing,
while both of these sites facilitate download of USGS's national vector
and raster data holdings. To build upon the success of these sites and
their functionality, what is needed is the development of technologies
that allow users to directly access these live data holdings for direct
scientific analysis including the availability to request common
computational models for the data. This will allow the data to still be
easily combinable using simple Web or robust GIS client applications but
also continuous and dynamic access not just as "flattened" image data or
downloadable data but as scientific data.

**Partnerships:** By working with the OGC we are essentially partnering
with many groups because the OGC is now comprised of over 330
international government, university, and commercial organizations.
However, direct partnerships should be made with leaders in OGC
including NASA facilities like the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, various
Universities, and leaders in the commercial geospatial applications.

Trent M. Hare, <thare@usgs.gov>

Astrogeology, 2255 N. Gemini Drive

Flagstaff, AZ 86001