Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote

Sensing Satellites

May 1993

OTA-BP-ISC-114

NTIS order #PB93-192290
Office of Technology Assessment

Congressional Board of the 103d Congress

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman

DON SUNDQUIST, Tennessee, Vice Chairman

Senate House

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina GEORGE E. BROWN, JR., California

CLAIBORNE PELL, Rhode Island JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah (Vacancy)

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa AMO HOUGHTON, New York

DAVE DURENBERGER, Minnesota MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio

ROGER HERD MAN

(Nonvoting)

JOSHUA LEDERBERG,

Chairman

Professor, Rockefeller

University

New York, New York

NEIL E. HARL, Vice Chairman

Professor, Department of

Economics

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa

CHARLES A. BOWSHER

Comptroller General of the

United States

Washington, D.C.

LEWIS M. BRANSCOMB

Director, Science, Technology &

Public

Policy Program, Harvard

University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Advisory Council

HERBERT (TED) DOAN

President (Ret.), The Dow

Chemical Company

Midland, Michigan

MICHEL T. HALBOUTY

Chairman of the Board& Chief

Executive Officer

Michel T. Halbouty Energy Co.

Houston, Texas

JAMES C. HUNT

Distinguished Professor, Health

Sciences Center

University of Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

MAX LENNON

President, Clemson University

Clemson, South Carolina

Acting Director

ROGER HERDMAN

CHASE N. PETERSON

President Emeritus and

Professor

University of Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah

JOSEPH E. ROSS

Director, Congressional

Research Service

The Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

JOHN F.M. SIMS

Vice President, Marketing

Usibelli Coal Mine, Inc.

Fairbanks, Alaska

MARINA v.N. WHITMAN

Professor, Institute of Public

Policy Studies

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan

The views expressed in this background paper are not necessarily those of the Board, OTA Advisory

Council, on individual members thereof.
.

Earth Observation Systems Advisory Panel

James G. Anderson

Professor

Department of Chemistry

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

Rodney Nichols, Chair

New York Academy of Sciences

New York, NY

D. James Baker

Director

Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Inc.

Washington, DC

William Brown

President

ERIM Corporation

Ann Arbor, MI

Ronald Brunner

Professor

Center for Public Policy Research

University of Colorado

Boulder, CO

Joanne Gabrynowicz

Associate Professor

Department of Space Studies

University of North Dakota

Grand Forks, ND

Alexander F.H. Goetz

Director

Center for the Study of Earth from Space

University of Colorado

Boulder, CO

David Goodenough

Chief Research Scientist

Pacific Forestry Center

Forestry Canada

Victoria, BC

Donald Latham

Corporate Director

Loral Corporation

Reston, VA

Cecil E. Leith

Physicist

Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory

Livermore, CA

John H. McElroy

Dean of Engineering

The University of Texas at Arlington

Arlington, TX

Molly McCauley

Fellow

Resources for the Future

Washington, DC

Earl Merritt

Vice President, Research

Earthsat Corporation

Rockville, MD
Alan Miller

Director

The Center for Global Change

University of Maryland

College Park, MD

Raymond E. Miller

Professor

Department of Computer Science

University of Maryland

College Park, MD

Kenneth Pederson

Research Professor of International Affairs

School of Foreign Service

Georgetown University

Washington, DC

David T. Sandwell

Geological Resources Division

Scripps Institute of Oceanography

La Jolla, CA

Dorm Walklet

President

TerraNOVA International

Los Altos, CA

Albert Wheelon

Consultant

Los Angeles, CA

NOTE: OTA appreciates and is gratefi.d for the valuable assistance and thoughtful critiques provided by the

advisoxy panel members. The panel does not, however, necessarily approve, disapprove, or endorse this

background paper. OTA assumes full responsibility for the background paper and the accuracy of its

contents.

iv
OTA Project Staff—Data Format Standards

for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites

Lionel S. Johns, Assistant Director, OTA

Energy, Materials, and International Security Division

(through February 1993)

Peter Blair, Acting Assistant Director, OTA

Energy, Materials, and International Security Division

(from February 1993)

Alan Shaw, International Security and Commerce Program Manager

Ray A. Williamson, Project Director

Brian McCue

Contractor

Madeline Gross

Administrative Staff

Jacqueline R. Boykin

Louise Staley
Donald Artis

Director

CETEC-ZC-B

U.S. Army Topographic

Engineering Center

Jill Butler, Major, USA

Central Imagery Office

Kenneth Daugherty

Chief Scientist

Defense Mapping Agency

Workshop-Formats, Media and Standards

for Civilian Remotely Sensed Data

October 2, 1992

Jim Frey

Program Manager

NPIC

National Exploitation Laboratory

D. Brian Gordon

Chairman

Tactical & Military Multispectral

Requirements Working Group

Defense Intelligence Agency

William Kennedy

Hughes STX

Lon Naylor

NPIC

Exploitation Support Group

NOTE: OTA appreciates and is grateful for the valuable assistance and thoughtful critiques provided by the

workshop participants. The panel does not, however, necessarily approve, disapprove, or endorse this

background paper. OTA assumes full responsibility for the background paper and the accuracy of its

contents.
Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites

Introduction

Earth data—positional, topographic, climatological, meteorological, man–made features,

and changes over time in all of these—are increasingly important to the military. They form the

heart of navigation, intelligence, combat information, situational awareness, weapon guidance,

damage assessment, and training systems. Analysis indicates that great advantages may accrue

from being able to integrate these functions. However, being able to do that integration in a

routine and efficient way will require either generating databases in one format (or a very few

compatible formats) or developing equipment to convert quickly and routinely among various

formats. Today, neither of these conditions exists. Data exist (and are gathered) in a variety of

diverse formats. This is the natural consequence of a situation in which–in the absence of a central

plan for integrating collectors, processors, and users–format commonality has not been a major

design factor. The format for any one system is usually chosen to meet the specific needs of that

system and is driven by the technology available at the time it is created. Often the factors that

dictate format are compelling (e.g., continuity of data provided to long-standing clients, or

optimization of satellite power budget). In many cases, altering format would necessitate costly,

extensive changes in hardware and software systems. Finally, setting standards is difficult when

technology moves quickly, and is particularly hampered by the notoriously cumbersome

MILSPEC process.

The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) was asked by the Senate Armed Services

Committee to investigate the plethora of formats for remotely sensed Earth data. At a workshop

held on October 2, 1992, participants discussed the pros and cons of standardizing formats for

remote-sensed data, the question of how many different standards are needed, with what else

should remote-sensed data be compatible, and who should set the standards. The discussion

1
Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ‘2

closed with the participants’ views as to what actions could be taken by Congress. Although the

attendees (see also the attached list) were from the national security community, the discussions

concerned primarily the use of data from civilian Earth remote sensing satellite systems: that is

systems such as Landsat that were built and operated primarily to provide data to the scientific

and civil commercial sectors. Data from these systems are bought and extensively used by the

military and intelligence communities. The need to integrate data from military-unique systems as

well only complicates the situation.

It was clear from the workshop that data from difference sources are largely provided in

different formats and on different media. Moreover, formats, media, and recording hardware for

the same system have often changed over time, leading to situations where old data is virtually

inaccessible. Creating order out of the current chaos will be a very difficult proposition, and is

likely to cause problems for many suppliers and users of data. Nevertheless, the payoff for doing

so may be sufficiently great to warrant a major effort in that direction.

Levels of Compatibility

Most civilian remote sensing satellite systems, such as the U.S. Landsat and the French

SPOT, use digital image transmission to send their data to Earth. Customers, while they may

receive a photographic image for reference’s sake, obtain the data on computer tapes. No standard

format for these tapes exists—each satellite system uses a unique format for its data, and this

multiplicity of formats can lead to difficulty for users. Indeed, standards do not even prevail within

a given system: the different Landsat ground stations distribute their data in slightly different

formats. Moreover, every compression schemel is, in fact, a format.

1 Dam ‘~COmPre~S1on~t ~CherneS shorten messages by capitalizing on their redundancies. 1rnat@ scenes, for

example, tend to contain sizable patches of identical shade or color. A transmission scheme that specifies the
..

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 3

Participants identified three levels of compatibility—hardware, software, and data. To take

examples from the now-familiar world of personal computers, two users of IBM-compatible

machines have hardware compatibility; if they both use Lotus 1-2-3 they have software

compatibility; and if they each set up their Lotus spreadsheets in the same way they have data

compatibility. Alternatively, they can have hardware compatibility without both owning IBM

machines if both machines are “IBM-compatibles”; they can have software compatibility without

using Lotus if they agree to use Lotus-compatible spreadsheet packages; but the only way to have

data compatibility is to stick to the same data format. Also, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly,

software compatibility can be had without hardware compatibility if the correct communications

protocol is used. These ideas carry over into the rest of the computer world, including the

collection and use of remotely sensed Earth data. As will be discussed below, problems resulting

from incompatibilities can be resolved through the use of appropriate conversion software. The

routine use of conversion software is an alternative to compatibility, not a form of it.

color of each picture element, saying “blue, blue, blue, red, green, green, green,” will be less efficient than one

that uses compression to say, “2 blues, 1 red, 3 greens. ”
Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites 4

A common form of hardware incompatibility is that of the media used to store data. The picture shows a frustrated

user’s exhibit of the many media on which he received remotely sensed Earth data during Operation Desert Storm.

Source: United States Army Topographic Engineering Center.

There is no shortage of horror stories regarding data and data formats. In the Persian Gulf

War, for example, Apache helicopters had the terrain of the United States hardwired2 into their

navigational systems and thus could not be loaded with Persian Gulf data. Similarly, British

Tornado fighter-bombers were hardwired for Europe. The JSTARS aircraft had data for the right

2 That is to say, hilt in rather than wfitten ‘n
Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 5

place, but for the wrong time: they were loaded with data of 1985-1987 vintage and lacked any

provision for updating the data.

The Present Situation

To a large degree, data formats (especially the formats of “raw” data) are determined by

the sensors that originate the data. Different sensors, e.g., electro-optical cameras and SARs,

would be hard-pressed to transmit data in the same format.3 Thus the data are “born” in

incompatible formats, and any compatibility must be forced on them later.

Use by some vendors of proprietary data formats, for which they retain the source code,4

is another source of incompatibility. While these formats are legitimately proprietary in that they

relate to the vendors’ trade secrets about how their products work, the use of proprietary formats

weds the user to the vendor: the vendor must enter any new or updated data that arise because

the user cannot do so on his own. Such practices can actually result in the de-standardization of

data, such as the DMA maps scanned into the video memories of aircraft map-display systems.

U.S. aircraft went to the Persian Gulf with three sets of such formerly-identical data, rendered

into different formats.

DoD contracting regulations stymie attempts to arrive at standardized data formats and

technologies. Data are acquired at the command5 level, and the commands thus write independent

3 lt is intended hat EOSDIS data formats be sensor-independent, but workshop pdCipaIltS felt hat Complete

sensor-independence would not be attained.

4 “source ~~e~~ is me computer Progrm as written by a programmer. 1t could be easily read bY ano~er

programmer. To be read and run by a computer it must be “compiled,” a nearly irreversible predigestion step that

renders the program palatable to the computer but unfit for human consumption.

5 me ~ill~’s 10 “unified and s~cifled commands” are the highest levels of geographic and funCtiOn~

aggregation present in the U.S. Armed Forces.
—.

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 6

contracts and wind up with up-to-date, incompatible systems bought for a good price. They have

no formal means by which to coordinate a standard with each other, and scant leverage to enforce

an informally coordinated standard on vendors should they arrive at one.

As noted above, the different Landsat ground stations distribute their data in slightly

different formats, perhaps because they were built by different contractors. The format of Landsat

data has changed over time, and even the passage of a mere 3-5 years has been enough to render

some data inaccessible. Multispectral (MSS) data originally collected by Landsats 1-3 are in a

different format from those collected by Landsats 4 and 5. There are no fewer than 5 different

Tm6 formats In some cases, the format is standard while the meaning of the data is not:

brightness, for example, may be expressed in the same numbers and recorded in the same format

but the same number may, in different data sets, refer to different absolute levels.

France’s SPOT system is more uniform, perhaps only because it is newer. There are two

SPOT formats now, and a new one forthcoming.

The Landsat-SPOT translation is the classic case of incompatibility in the civilian Earth

remote sensing community today. In one sense, it is quite difficult because the formats were

developed completely independently of each other and thus have nothing in common. In another

sense, it is quite easy because it arises so often that computer programmers have come to grips

with it and produced software packages that are easy to use. In preparing to conduct the

workshop, OTA staff questioned several experts on important questions of compatibility and were

puzzled that the question “How hard is it to merge Landsat and SPOT data?” elicited responses

ranging from “That’s very difficult indeed” to “We do it on a daily basis. ” Colloquy at the

6 Thematic Mapper.
. —

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 7

workshop revealed the resolution of this paradox: the software to perform this merging is difficult

to write, but once it has been written it is easy to use.

The newly created Central Imagery Office is seen by some as the Government’s vehicle of

deliverance from the current surfeit of non-standard data formats, and indeed the CIO is at work

on a National Imagery Transmission Format Standard.7 However, a participant expressed the

sentiment that until CIO has “a budget and a building” its pronouncements will carry little weight.

Pros and Cons of Standardization

Some may feel that the surfeit of different formats—and even media–creates an open-andshut case for standardization. Others, seeing standardization as analogous to U.S. adoption of the

metric system—compellingly efficient in principle, horrendously difficult in practice-say, “We

can’t change everything now. ” Finally, some may say that standardization is a fine idea, but really

means “Let’s standardize on my format. ”

In the absence of standards, each organization develops a format that best fits its own

needs. This format will, of course, differ from that of any other organization. Each user discounts

the value of standardization, if only because it will not pay off until some vague time in the future.

Eventually, the need will arise for one organization to use another’s data. Then the call for

compatibility will be heard.

Making two or more organizations format their data in the same way has obvious

advantages, and resistance may seem to be rooted purely in inertia

7 This s~~d actually predates CIO, and has been in the Works for 8 years.

It is important to keep in
—.. .

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 8

mind, however, that compliance with the standard has a greater cost than “just” the rewriting of

existing software: it forces the organization out of a format custom-tailored to its own needs and

into a one-size-fits-all format representing a major compromise among a number of users. It can

also act as a brake on innovation, and can cause the community to miss out on new technologies

or even new sources of data. For this reason, no standards can be permanent—it will at some

point become outdated and need replacement, triggering a new debate.

Thus careful thought should precede any shift to a standard format. Standardization just

isn’t appropriate for some users. For example, the downlink from the satellite itself is only

received by a few stations. The format of the downlinked data is a reflection of the sensor

hardware aboard the satellite and is carefully designed to wring the greatest possible capability out

of the scant power, bandwidth, and transmission time available to the satellite.

EOSAT’S standardization of data formats was viewed as “a questionable model” by

workshop participants, who held that the Government committed errors in this connection.

EOSDIS, 8 not only because of its intended sensor-independence but also because of its sheer

magnitude, may become a de facto standard in the near future. If it does so, it may even begin to

mold the shape of future data, ruling out any data that cannot be expressed in an EOSDIS format.

Conversion

An option open to the user who wants to retain his own data format is to do so,

converting data to or from the officially sanctioned standard format whenever he communicates

with the outside world. The sufficiently sophisticated user could thus show a standardized face to

8 The Em observation Satellite Data and Information System.
— — --

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 9

the world while internally operating in whatever idiosyncratic way was needed to get the job

done. At present, instances of compatibility are the exception, and conversion software is widely

used. Some organizations even retain programmers whose primary job is to write custom

software to bridge compatibility gaps as they arise. Such an organization is likely to say, “We

don’t have much of a problem with non-standardization of remotely sensed Earth data,” because

they have the problem well in hand. However, such a statement ignores the payroll cost of

retaining the programmers and the opportunity cost incurred through allocation of the

programmers’ efforts to the solution of avoidable problems.

Another option open to the user who likes his own format is to use it both internally and

with the outside world, and let others bear the cost of conforming to it. In this practice lies the

genesis of today’s profusion of data formats. Its attraction is that it allows the user to create a

format that is optimal for him: the costs of conversion are laid at the other users’ feet or, in

economists’ terms, externalized. As a frequent bearer of this externalized cost, the Government

could, for the purposes of letting contracts, figure its own conversion costs into the true cost of

each bidder’s proposed system. An even greater cost would be born if lives were lost as the result

of an inability to transmit or display data properly.

With What Else Should Remotely Sensed Earth Data Be Compatible?

Remotely sensed Earth data should be formatted with a view toward compatibility with

each other and also with image processing tools, the terrain data in models and simulations used

in weapons development and crew training (such as SIMNET), and the object data

(representations of tanks, aircraft, etc.) in these models and simulations. They should also be

compatible with a variety of data not obtained by remote sensing, such as cartographic and
. .. . .

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 10

geodetic data obtained by in situ measurement, and even with such non-image data as 150 years’

worth of in situ weather data with which EOS data will need to be compared by the global

warming community.

Time-Domain Compatibility

One workshop member, in answer to the question posed in the heading of the preceding

section, said simply, “the future. ” Consideration needs to be given to compatibility with future

systems as well as the spectrum of present-day ones. The anecdote (recounted above) about the

lack of any provision to update the data in JSTARS is not unique. The legendary rate of technical

progress in the computer industry will quickly make any standard into a limitation: familiar rules

of thumb hold that hardware doubles in capability every 9 months, and software lags by 5 years.

Data formats of necessity lag software, and standards will lag the formats, so almost any standard

will greatly confine future developers. At present, for example, our telephone standards are

shaped by the requirements of voice transmission. Yet a large and growing fraction of telephone

traffic (30°/0, expected to be 70°/0 by the year 2000) is data, not voice.

Consideration also must be given to compatibility with the systems of the past. The

software in image processing work stations, for example, ought to be able to deal with data from

archives as well as with data from a satellite currently in orbit. NASA’s archives of satellite

pictures of other planets provide a cautionary example in this regard: much of the “take” has never

been looked at and is in formats not accessible to any present-day system and not sufficiently well

documented that any system can readily be configured to read them. It is said that Government

cryptologists have been brought in to decipher the data, as if it were some clandestine

transmission,
. ———

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites 11

How Many Different Standards Are Needed?

Would it really be feasible to have a single standard? Should there be a standard for

producers and another for consumers, with the transformation accomplished by some single

entity? Perhaps, as in so many things, the separate services will assert that each of them, because

of its unique requirements, needs to have its own standard. More substantively, the final product

will not be a single standard, but a family of standards. Some will be for archiving, others for

transfer, and so on. Different standards will apply to data of different qualities—one standard for

extrapolation-quality data, another for presentation-quality data, and so on again. Presentationquality data could logically be in vector format for some applications and in raster-scan format for

others, so more than one standard is necessary. Standards for transfer will vary according to the

transmission medium and the time-vs.-bandwidth tradeoff it presents-there could be one standard

for transmission by fiber-optic link and another for transmission by 2400 baud telephone line.

With what else should remotely sensed data be compatible? These data are not used in a

vacuum–should their format be compatible with other data, such as terrestrially acquired Earth

data, other than Earth data, or non-image data used by the same users? Who are the users we care

about–mapmakers, modelers, simulators, guidance-system designers . . . ? In the end, what is

needed is not only a family of standards for data formats, but a standard for interoperability

between nonstandard formats and a well-thought-out program of standard maintenance.

At the very minimum, all formats could be required to use a standard header that would

give some facts about the origin of the data but which would mainly contain an indicator of what

format (standardized or otherwise) the coming data were in.
Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 12

Finally, there will always be some users who demand the raw bit stream exactly as it came

out of the satellite or sensor. For them, there can be no standardization (other than that stemming

from possible standardization of sensors) because, as mentioned above, the format of data so

close to the sensor is determined by the characteristics of the sensor itself.

Who Should Set The Standards?

A variety of organizations are potential setters of imagery standards: CIO, NASA NIST

(The National Institute of Standards, formerly the National Bureau of Standards), DoD, and the

international standard-setting bodies, to name a few. The CIO could help considerably in this

regard. Industry will favor standards and will eventually create them if Government does not, but

will scrutinize proposed Government standards carefully for advantages to particular vendors. On

a worldwide basis, the United States can hope and expect to exert strong influence over the rest

of the world, not only through market leadership but through good example. Internally, a

particular company may sooner or later come to dominate the market and thus verge on becoming

a de facto standard, but one should recognize that the success of the company in the market place

may be despite their data format instead of because of it, and therefore one should avoid jumping

to the conclusion that the leading data format (if any) is the best.

Those new to the standards business are sometimes surprised that there needs to be a

specification for standards—on the face of it, this seems to be another round of wasted

Governmental motion. Yet such an effort is needed, to ensure that the standards address the same

issues, use the same vocabulary, and will be understood in the same ways. Today, for example,
Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites ● 13

confusion sometimes arises because the term “null character” means “ “ to some, “O” to some

others, and" "to others still.

Issues for Congress

Is this standard to be a law? Should its formulator have regulatory authority? Where in the

budget will standardization be paid for? Where in the budget will the savings become evident?

Ought the conversion cost inflicted on the Government by the production of non-standard data be

legislatively decreed as a cost of the contract, to be used in choosing vendor? Ought Congress to

ban the writing of contracts in which the Government acquires data written in a proprietary

format?