# Presentation: 228050

## Digital Earth Cluster

- Rob Raskin
- Ocean ESIP
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory

## What is Digital Earth

- “A virtual representation of our planet that enables a person to explore and interact with the vast amounts of natural and cultural information gathered about the Earth”
- An environment for sharing georeferenced information
- Based on the OpenGIS standard for transferring georeferenced data over the internet
***Digital Earth will do for georeferenced information what the World Wide Web did for text and multimedia***

## Conceptual Digital Earth Architecture

- Map

- Gridded
- Coverage

- Geoprocessing

- VectorFeature

- Web
- Browser

- “Thick” Web
-  Viewers

- Immersive 3-D
- and Wall-Sized

- Desktop
- GIS

- Internet

- Catalog

- Servers

- Services

- Clients

## Cluster Objectives

- To help make Federation data accessible to the widest possible audiences *(e.g. planners, high school students, interdisciplinary researchers, general public) *
- To help make Federation data "overlayable" with other data* (including non-Federation data) *
- To disseminate new Digital Earth developments and opportunities to Federation members *(e.g. Web Mapping Server enhancements; funding opportunities) *
- To develop Federation Digital Earth prototypes *(possibly in conjunction with NASA prototypes)*

## Participating ESIPs

*Type I*
- GHRC
- Goddard DAAC
- PO.DAAC
- SEDAC

*Type 3*
- CalSIP
- EDAC
- ELIS
- MTPE
- Planet Earth Science
- TerraSIP
- WeatherNet 4/ StormCener

*Type 2*
- DODS
- EOS-WEBSTER
- ESP2Net
- GENESIS
- IBM Watson
- Ocean ESIP
- PM-ESIP
- SIESIP
- TRFIC

*Type 4*
- NASA

## Data Compliance

## Web Mapping Server Standard

- Server must be capable of providing client with arbitrary spatial subsets over the internet.  Sample request:
- http://www.airesip.com?BBOX=-90.,35.,-80.,45. &WIDTH=480&HEIGHT=640&FORMAT=GIF &LAYER=wind
- Server must provide metadata in XML files conforming to standard

## WMS-Compliant Federation Data

- NDVI (AVHRR), TerraSip
- Amazon Basin Imagery (SAR) , TRFIC
- Sea Surface Height, Wave Height, Temperature, and Wind, OceanESIP
- Air Temperature Profiles, PM-ESIP
- Water Vapor (TMI) PM-ESIP
- Rainfall/Precipitation (TRMM), SIESIP
- Global Population, SEDAC

## How to Make Your Dataset WMS-Compliant

- Be able to extract spatial/temporal subsets and deliver via http
- Tutorial/Guide was developed and made available as handout

## Versions

- Current WMT standard supports image formats
- New version ( Spring 2001) supports
- Access to data (HDF-EOS, raw binary), rather than just images
- Support for multi-dimensional time-dependent data and vector (GIS) data

## Viewers

## Client Viewers

- Any client viewer can access any WMS-compliant data
- Available viewers
- Public domain digital earth viewer
- Space-Time Toolkit (UAH)
- Planet Earth Science, Inc.
- Desktop GIS viewers

## Space-Time Toolkit (UAH)

- Manipulate data in 2-D or 3-D space (zoom, pan, rotate, reproject, slice, etc.)
- Merge WMT data with non-WMT sources and data types (points, lines, textured surfaces)
- Can apply WMT layer as texture on 3D surface

## Geographic Information Multimedia Instrument (GIMI)

- Thick viewer under development by Planet Earth Science, Inc.
- Supports download for off-line viewing
- Full WMT 2 support (GIS and multidimensional data)
- Uses IDL run-time module for graphics
- Advanced value-added functions for commercial use
- Multimedia GUI and tutorials
- Internet session info saved locally for reconnection
- One-time download, then web-ready: PC and MacOS

## Scenarios

## Scenarios

- Purpose
- To demonstrate the value of Digital Earth for specific end-use applications (a “recipe”)
- To put a story around a dataset
- To enable similar end-users to take advantage of the experiences of others
- Scenario Template
- A capture of the common elements of scenario development
- To enable non-similar end-users to take advantage of the experiences of others

## Federation Scenarios Planned

- Watershed Planning (Environmental Lawyers and Decision Makers), ELIS
- Weather and Environmental Reporting (Media), StormCenter.com
- Sustainability Indicators (Environmental Planners), SEDAC
- Precipitation Measurement (Hydrologists), EDAC, UAH
- El Nino Impacts (Planners), Ocean ESIP
- Earth Exploration Kiosks (Museums), MTPE

## SEDAC - Environmental Sustainability Indicators

- Policy makers and planners need to assess local, national regional, and global progress towards environmental sustainability
- Derived indicators of environmental sustainability (or its lack) need to be viewed in the context of spatially detailed environmental and socioeconomic data.
- As functions in WMT are added, sustainability indicators could be used as criteria for selecting data, e.g., return specified layers *where* environmental stresses are greater than x and human vulnerability exceeds y

## Gateways

## DODS WMT Gateway

- Data served by DODS may also be accessed using the WMT 1.0 protocol.
- The Gateway may be configured for remote datasets.
- Provides for date/time selection from multi-file datasets.
- Limited to gridded datasets that use cylindrical-equirectangular projection; available Mar. 2001

## ArcIMS WMT Connector

- ESRI product
- Enables data served by ArcIMS to be accessed using the WMT 1.0 protocol.
- Will provide WMT access to ESRI’s *Geography Network*

## NASA’s HDF-EOS Web GIS Server (NWGISS)

- Converts HDF-EOS data (grid, swath, point) to WMT-compliant form
- Supports multi-dimensional, multi-temporal data
- Freely available
- Future version will support catalog services

## Benefits of Cluster Activities

## Benefits to Federation

- Expanded user base of Federation products
- Enables combining seemingly disparate datasets for non-traditional science users
- Compliance with emerging standards
- Targeting of specific end-users with scenarios

## Benefits to Digital Earth Program

- Access to more WMT-compliant data
- Federation is rich source of georeferenced data
- Cluster presentations at DE Meetings
- DE Community Mtg, Washington, DC Sept 2000
- DE Community Mtg., Harrisburg, PA Jan 2001
- Int’l DE Meeting, Fredricton, NB Canada June 2001
- Upcoming Conference: “Digital Earth Applications in Remote Sensing” for legal professionals sponsored by ELIS
- DE Program is interagency collaboration involving 17 Federal agencies
- All agencies benefit

## Search Engine

- Search Engine under development is tightly coupled with viewer
- Takes user to data (rather than to metadata only)
- Natural language interface/ knowledge base under development will help general public with access