Almost all of the products available from CCRS or through CCRS are sent in the CEOS format in one form or another on 9-track tape. Exabyte tapes have also been adopted in the last few years. However with the advent of the current and future network technology, it will be necessary to include this in the design considerations for a future formatting system. The format contains all the information required to successfully analyze, correct and interpret the imagery data. The overall logical structure of the format is simple to grasp from a tape file point of view.
All Canadian data downlink processing facilities produce products conforming to the CEOS standard.
These products can range from RAW data to highly processed scenes of imagery and are supported in the CEOS format document for a given sensor. The format is highly complex at the record level and requires careful interpretation of the format documents. There are currently more than ten separate documents. These errors become apparent when a research scientist attempts to read a new product with previously reliable software. There was no consideration given to the design of software tools for accessing the CEOS format.