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2. USER INTERFACES, META-DATA AND
CATALOGUE SYSTEMS
The development of externally accessable catalogue and
information systems was the technological answer and
deciding step from the ,data graves“ of the past to the
data libraries of today. One of the most advanced
systems of this kind is the Intelligent Satellite Information
System, ISIS, of the German Remote Sensing Data
Center (DFD-DLR) which was sponsered by the German
Ministry of Research, Technology, Education and
Science (BMBF). The graphical user interface is also
GISIS.
accessable via ISDN, telephone modem, X-25 network.
Comparable systems were developed in ESA (UIT), as
part of the US EOSDIS and by private companies
(eiNet/Eurimage or DALI/spotimage).
All have a simillar structure and offer, under a graphical
user surface, access to a data catalogue with search
tools. Differences exist on the underlaying databases and
catalogue systems.
ISIS has, via the CEOS International Directory Network
(IDN), access to worldwide meta-databases. An even
higher level of catalogue interoperability is realised in the
framework of the CEOS Catalogue Interoperability
Experiment (CINTEX). CINTEX has defined a Catalogue
Interoperability Protocol (CIP). By this
technique the searching machine
translates a query into CIP and accesses
different catalogue systems worldwide.
For the user it looks like one large
catalogue. So it is possible to search for
available images of a certain area not
only in the DLR archives but also in US or
Japanese catalogues. DLR is taking part
at CINTEX with ISIS. The service is only
available for pilot users yett. Many future
systems as ESA's MUIS will follow this
CEOS standard.
ISIS allows to select interesting target
areas by the geographic location, via a
geographic name database with ca.
170000 entries or graphical by drawing a
window on a map (map browser tool).
Other categories of selection are the type
of sensor (e.g. AVHRR, Landsat, XSAR,
etc.) and the acquisition period (see fig.
Fig. 1: ISIS complete catalogue query
1).
Footprints of available products are displayed on digital
maps after the search process and digital quicklooks can
be visualised on-line by a browser tool (see fig.2).
According to a study of the
EC (ESYS 1995), DFD is the
major non-revenue based
data supplier, by numbers of
products, in Europe (4296),
followed by Dundee
University and ESA. Non-
revenue based data supply is
four times the number of
revenue-based products
supplied.
Part of this success is due to
the external access to all
meta-data by ofa
sophisticated user interface. It
is now available in an Internet
based version and is also
| Senece Spedirication
au
Fig. 2 ISIS displaying a
typical NOAA-AVHRR
quicklook
(Lotz-Iwen et al, 1995)
515
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996
