EARTH OBSERVATION IN THE INFORMATION AGE - TRENDS IN UTILISATION OF
NETWORKS FOR EARTH OBSERVATION APPLICATIONS
Volker Liebig, German Space Agency DARA
Commission IV, Working Group IV/2
KEY WORDS: Networks, Multimedia Tools, Standards, Data Delivery, Marketing, Developing Countries
ABSTRACT: The information age with its new multi-media technologies has already now a great influence on the way
the Earth Observation community exchanges information. Even more will come up in the next future. In many
countries network based satellite information systems have been set up. As an example, one of the most advanced
user interfaces, the ISIS of the German remote sensing data center DFD/DLR is presented. It is well accepted by the
users and gives access to online meta-data and search tools.
Due to the exponential growth of the number of web servers for EO relevant subjects new aproaches are necessary to
deal with the „information pollution“. In the European context the CEO activity of the European Commission tries to
offer a standardised internet environment and tools to enable a „one stop shopping“ for the user. Higher network
bandwidths will give further possibilities for direct data delivery and decentralised utilisation of databases.
Also the commercial scene is starting to use the new media which opens the door for completely new marketing
approaches and services which could help to accellerate the extension of the market.
Even in developing countries new communication strategies will help to overcome the information gap caused by the
lack of infrastructure. A pilot project for a developing country information locator system is presented.
KURZFASSUNG: Das Informationszeitalter mit seinen Multimedia Technologien hat schon jetzt einen großen Einfluß
auf die Art, wie die Erdbeobachtungs-Community Informationen austauscht. Schon die nächste Zukunft wird weitere
wesentliche Änderungen bringen. In vielen Ländern wurden in den vergangenen Jahren netzwerkbasierende Satelliten-
Informationssysteme aufgebaut. Als Beispiel wird eines der fortschrittlichsten Systeme dieser Art, das ISIS des
Deutschen Fernerkundungs-Datenzentrums DFD/DLR vorgestellt. Es wurde von den Nutzern sehr gut angenommen
und ermöglicht den Zugang zu online Metadaten und Suchwerkzeugen.
Durch das exponentielle Wachstum der Anzahl der Netzwerk Server für erdbeobachtungs-relevante Themen ergibt
sich die Notwendigkeit neuer Ansätze um mit der unüberschaubaren Informationsmenge umgehen zu können. Im
europäischen Rahmen versucht die EU Kommission mit ihrer CEO Initiative eine Standardumgebung und Werkzeuge
anzubieten um für die Nutzer ein „one stop shopping“ zu ermöglichen. Höhere Netzwerk Bandbreiten werden schon in
naher Zukunft erweiterte Möglichkeiten für die direkte Datenlieferung und die Nutzung dezentraler Datenbanken geben.
Auch die kommerziellen Anbieter beginnen die neuen Medien zu nutzen, da diese völlig neue Marketing-Strategien und
Dienstleistungen ermöglichen die helfen können den Markt auszuweiten.
Auch in Entwicklungsländern beginnen neue Kommunikationsstrategien die Informationslücke zu schließen, die duch
das Fehlen von Infrastruktur verursacht ist. Ein Pilotprojekt für ein Information Locator System für Entwicklungsländer
wird vorgestellt.
Language (HTML) editors have opened the internet for
Earth observation services of any kind.
Hundreds of servers have been developed in a short time
The eplosive growth of networks in the last years has but the growth is uncoodinated and the user is more or
changed the way people communicate and exchange less left alone with the flood of information. On the other
data and information. Especially the internet has become hand the new technologies give the chance to bring
a de facto standard by the overwhelming user online access to Earth observation data and metadata on
1. INTRODUCTION
acceptance. An estimated 30 million users and over a
million servers are actually on the „net“. The idea of a
global information highway has so become reality within
a very short time.
Whereas in the beginning of wide area network
applications most activities concentrated on letter-based
mail and file exchange the technological development
has now reached a standard where graphic-based
communication takes place. Even more sophisticated
multi-media applications are in preparation as net video
and audio.
The free availability of World Wide Web clients, e.g.
mosaik or netscape, and easy to use Hyper Text Markup
every desk. New developments like the Java
programming language will open further opportunities
also for Earth observation users. An investigation of the
European infrastructure of Earth observation related
datasets (DHV/ESYS, 1995) within research
organisations summarises: ,The research organisations
did not have the resources...to establish and maintain
external interfaces. Dissemination and sharing of
research information of results had a high priority.
Internet connections and WWW homepages are
becomming a customary adjunct to normal publication"
In this article three examples shall demonstrate the state
of the art and future developments of Internet based
Earth observation systems.
514
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996
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