H I G H L I G H T
As we look at the incredible growth of
the worldwide web over the last five
years, it is difficult to imagine what
the future holds for the next five
years. It seems that nearly every educational institution, company, nonprofit organization, and government
agency has a web site. Internet-based
commerce has quickly moved from
the exception to the rule, as entrepreneurs recognize the benefits of a global market for their products and services. The cost of transferring data is
dropping, while traffic is increasing
nearly 1000% each year1, which will
increase Internet commerce further
and enable the growth of online electronic delivery. Web-based services
are beginning to proliferate just as
web-based text and images have proliferated.
Earth-related data and information
products are also proliferating as remote sensing, digital map-making,
and Geographic Information Systems
and databases mature. The U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency
(NIMA) is producing feature foundation data. U.S. Vice President A1 Gore
wants a Digital Earth database. Commercial, one-meter resolution satellite imagery will soon be available.
The Open GIs Consortium, Inc. (OGC)
advocates standards for open
geoprocessing to allow the sharing of
data and services. Yet imagery and
geospatial products-not seamless
content-continue to be the norm
when it comes to production and
online availability.
Data and Information
Products Today
...
Providers and users of geographic
content have been product-oriented
for many years. Data i n t h e form of
image frames froni aerial photography, symbolized information in t h e
524
Mav 1999
form of map sheets, and knowledge in
the form of written reports all exemplify this product orientation. All of
these products have been produced in
hardcopy format for distribution to
their respective users. Frequently,
digital versions of a hardcopy product
have also been produced-sometimes
available on digital media, other
times available on the web for reading or download.
The migration to a digital format
for products led to file-oriented storage and retrieval. With the advent of
the web, this has resulted in a growing number of data servers, online archives, and digital libraries that store
products and emulate the hardcopyoriented physical world-where the
user browses the shelves, or searches
the catalog, to retrieve the product in
question. This product ownership
model has as its hallmark the discovery, retrieval and storage of a copy of a
product by a user so that they can
"own" it and use it locally. For copyrighted content, the provider grants
the user a limited use license for the
downloaded product. The growing
number of geographic data provider
sites on the web presents the first
challenge-being able to identify providers and find products that meet a
user's search criteria. The OGCZ is addressing this challenge in its Distributed Catalog Services (DCS) initiative.
online that represents their particular
expertise. Users will have confidence
in and depend on the content of these
distributed providers. The quality of
each provider's content-certified
perhaps by a third party-will be
available as one of the attributes
against which a search and selection
will be performed. When adequate
content exists, and its quality can be
determined, the online content access model will supplant the ownership model. Under this model, online
viewing and use of geographic data,
information and knowledge will satisfy the needs of most users. It will no
longer be necessary to own a copy of a
product-but rather, it will be acceptable-and desirable-to have subscription-based, online access to distributed databases that contain
seamless content. The user interface
to this seamless content will be like
that of today's Geographic Information Systems (GIs), but will not necessarily be a GIs since open
geoprocessing will be ubiquitous. Users will be able to designate an area
of interest and select from among
multiple themes of Earth data, information and knowledge. Often the
user will not know or care about the
online geodata and geoprocessing resources that have been transparently
accessed to provide the answer the
user sought.
Seamless, Online
Content...Tomorrow
Multiple Types of
Seamless Content
The vision for the future is o ~ i l i nac~
The commercial remote sensing i n -
cess to seamless geographic data ant1
information-not j ~ l s tprot1uc:ts. Evcry
t y p e ancl (:lass of user will h a v e fast
c:o~mectionst o t h e Internet. T h e r e
will be hundreds-if n c ~ tthousandsof distributed provitlcrs from c o m m e r cia1 e n t e r p r i s e s , governments, acad e m i a , a n d private c:itizens a r o u n d
t h e world. Each will 11ublish c:ontout
d u s t r y \vill soon offer imagery data
that s l ~ a ~ l s tglobe,
l ~ e over a range of
spatial resolutions. 111 1999 a n d 2000.
t h r e e l1.S. c:ommercial c:ompanies
( S p a c e Imaging, OrbIrnage, ant1
EartllWatc:h) a r e schedllled to l a u n c h
s ~ s t e m sw i t h one-meter panchromatic:
r e s o l ~ ~ t i o(anti
n
four-meter m u l t i spectral r e s o l u t i o n ) , Different spec-
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
H I G H L I G H T
a l Information Network (GGIN)
geographic Data, Information, Knowledge and Services
tral bands including infrared, ultraviolet and radar will eventually all be
available as well as numerous bands
resulting from multi-spectral and
hyper-spectral sensors. Current and
historical imagery will also be available. Historical imagery may include
declassified reconnaissance imagery
like that collected by the Corona3 system, and perhaps others. Current imagery may be only a few minutes or a
few hours old, while historical imagery of a given area may span decades.
Spectral characteristics, quality, age
and timeliness will be attributes of
the various imagery themes that will
be available. Each will have an application.
Derived information about the
Earth from imagery and other sources
will also be available through the
GIs-like interface to online, distributed databases. Themes and coverages (collections of features) will address the elevations of land and the
depths of water, boundaries, place
names, and natural and man-made
features ranging from mountains and
valleys to oceans, lakes, rivers, and
transportation networks of railroads,
super-highways, and gravel roads.
Land use and land cover themes will
also be available. Every parcel of land
will be identified and traceable to its
owner. Every school, office building,
factory and residence will be tied to
its parcel, and owner. Addresses and
telephone numbers will also be tied
to physical structures. This diverse
content will be published and maintained by distributed providers
around the world-information companies and government agencies.
Knowledge about the Earth whether derived from imagery, geospatial information, or other sourceswill be the third category of online
content in distributed databases. Unlike the other themes that portray real
content directly, this set of themes
will point t o the existence of knowledge about particular Earth features
by representing this content as
graphical icons that overlay imagery,
or as links from symbolized features
in geospatial information themes. In
this manner, a user would be able to
view not only current imagery of a
particular location, and geospatial information such as its name, elevation,
and nearby roads, but also related
knowledge. The user would be provided with icons that link to providers' content as diverse as the nature
of businesses conducted in buildings,
or recent volcanic activity in nearby
mountains.
Implications
The implications of this growing
availability of Earth data, information, knowledge, and services are far
reaching. Online geographic information utilities will evolve from today's
providers of imagery data and map
products. These utilities will provide
foundation content that can be used
by today's traditional GIs users, such
as government planners and a variety
of new users that haven't even
thought about the implications of
ready access to geographic information. This foundation will be the base,
over which other important data, information, and knowledge can be
overlaid and presented. All users will
have access to relevant geographic
content, regardless of where it is
stored, or who produced it. This transparent access will allow the distributed, digital databases of multiple
providers to behave as one virtual,
global Geographic Information System. This is a similar concept to the
Digital Earth, proposed by Vice President Gore. The Digital Earth is a virtual representation of our planet that
enables a person to explore and inter-
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
act with the vast amounts of natural
and cultural information gathered
about the Earth.4
The Digital Earth
On 3 1 January 1998,Vice President A1
Gore presented a top-level concept
for the Digital Earth in a speech5 he
made at the California Science Center
in Los Angeles, California. See page
528 for the Vice Presidnet's speech. In
this speech he said, "I believe we
need a "Digital Earthw-a multi-resolution, three-dimensional representation of the planet, into which we can
embed vast quantities of geo-referenced data." He acknowledged the
scale of this undertaking when he
said, "Obviously no one organization
in government, industry or academia
could undertake such a project. Like
the World Wide Web, it would require
the grassroots efforts of hundreds of
thousands of individuals, companies,
university researchers, and government organizations."
But the Digital Earth will not be
just "free" government data collected
and processed by the U.S. National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) or the National
Imagery and Mapping Agency
(NIMA). Gore saw an opportunity for
industry to get involved when he
said, "Although some of the data for
the Digital Earth would be in the public domain, it might become a digital
marketplace for companies selling a
vast array of commercial imagery and
value-added services." Indeed! This
statement establishes the need for a
set of mechanisms to enable global
electronic commerce in online geographic content from commercial providers. In the Vice President's words,
"A Digital Earth could provide a
mechanism for users to navigate and
search for geospatial informationand for producers to publish it."
CONTINUED ON PAGE 527
M a y 1999
525
H I G H L I G H T
CONTINUEDFROM PAGE 525
The Digital Earth, in addition to being a project, can also be seen as a set
of views into nationally and globally
distributed spatial databases. These
distributed databases are the enabling
mechanism for decentralizing the
project by involving multiple providers of both content and applications.
Gore recognized this when he said,
"Rather than being maintained by a
single organization, it [the Digital
Earth] would be composed of both
publicly available information and
commercial products and services
from thousands of different organizations.
The Digital Earth, as envisioned by
the Vice President, is a "representation of the planet"-it is content that
can be viewed and manipulated by a variety of applications. He sees the development of a testbed as a way "to
spark the development" of
the Digital Earth, with two key
steps. "In the first stage, we
should focus on integrating
data from multiple sources
that we already have." Once
this is substantially accomplished, the second step can
be undertaken-"Next, we
should endeavor to develop a
digital map of the world at
one-meter resolution."
Global Geospatial
Information Network
A Global Geospatial Information Net-
work (GGIN) is envisioned as the
framework for implementing the Digital Earth vision. But, it goes beyond
content, and addresses mechanisms
for "connecting" users to an array of
globally distributed providers of
seamless data, information and
knowledge bases about the Earth, i.e.,
spatially controlled and geo-referenced coverages. Their content would
be produced, cataloged, and maintained in a standard way to provide
the user with an experience of dealing with a virtual, global GIs-the at-
tributes of which are: transparent
content access, navigation, display,
and processing. Transparent in this
case means that users can readily
find, receive, display and use the
content of multiple geospatial providers simultaneously, without regard
to the providers' identity or the location and format of the stored content.
Because not all of the content will be
public domain, mechanisms for automatic online usage billing across providers will also need to be provided.
This GGIN feature is akin to the North
American Cellular Network that provides nearly seamless roaming across
the boundaries of cellular and PCS
networks, including transparent call
delivery, feature delivery, and billing-independent of the location of
the mobile telephone user.
sired) are serving the content, it is
necessary for two cases to be addressed. In the first case, the user
must be able to navigate
across contiguous areas (within a particular
theme) of a single provider, without
discon-tinuities, regardless of the
size of any production and/or display
tiles. There should be no noticeable
differences in quality, nor temporal
delays incurred when transiting these
boundaries. Similarly, the user must
be able to navigate across contiguous
areas (within a particular theme)
when two (or more) providers serve
the user's area of interest. The same
criteria apply as above. This is represented graphically by Figure 1,
"Transparent Navigation within a
Theme." The three darkly shaded
tiles on the left represent one provider, while the lighter
shaded tiles on the right repTable 1. GGIN Attributes
resent a second provider. The
Multiple, distributed, global content providers
arrows represent the direction
of user navigation across (proGeographic data, information & knowledge
duction) tiles (from left to
Global extent
right) served by the first proUnlimited, seamless coverages and themes
vider, both providers, and the
provider.
Unclassified, restricted, and classified security
The second case requires
Current and historical content
transparent navigation between and among several covMultiple scales and resolutions
erages or themes, for the same
Vector, raster (and text) formats
area of interest, that are from
Free and for-a-fee access
the same or different providers. In this case, it should be
Transparent user access and navigation
possible for the user to select
as many themes as necessary,
Transparent Navigation
toggling them on or off at will, while
There are several ~imensionsto pronavigating across a particular area of
viding a
with transparent naviinterest. This is represented g a p h i gation across globally distributed geographic content databases. Two
aspects that are critically important
from a "user experience" perspective
are navigation across contiguous areas within a given theme or coverage,
and navigation between coverages
and themes for the same area of interest. Because the user should not be
capable of perceiving that multiple
distributed providers (depending on
the area of interest and themes deCONTINUED ONPAGE 531
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
I
M a y 1999
527
H I G H L I G H T
Figure 2
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 527
cally by Figure 2, "Transparent Navigation between CoverageslThemes."
The variously shaded layers represent imagery data, geospatial information, and graphical representations of the existence of knowledge
about natural or manmade features
that have all been co-referenced to
each other. The arrows represent the
necessary directions for which
transparent navigation must be provided. Initially, "roaming" through
the seamless themes may be accomplished by updating the user's window with static raster-data, i.e.,
JPEG- or GIF-formatted images or a
combination of raster images overlaid with vector data. However, as
available bandwidth, compression
efficiency, and processor speed all
increase, the prospect of near-realtime roaming over multiple layers of
content via the Internet comes
closer to reality.
Benefits of GGIN to Provider
and Users
A GGIN will provide benefits to
providers and users alike.
From a provider perspective, current
and future purveyors of satellite and
aerial imagery data; geographic, cartographic and geospatial information,
and knowledge about the Earth could
offer their array of online content and
related services, through Internetbased electronic commerce. As members of a GGIN, providers would know
that their content would seamlessly
integrate with that of other memberproviders for the benefit of their customers-users of a GGIN. As shown in
the previous figures, content would
need to integrate both horizontally
and vertically. Horizontal integration
ensures that no boundaries are visible
or discernable between providers'
content for a user's area of interest,
while vertical integration ensures
that different geospatial themes register with each other within that
same area.
A
From a user perspective, there
would be several obvious benefits.
First, the user would easily be able
to determine geographically oriented content that is available. For
discrete products, this would be accomplished by searching an array of
distributed catalogs of metadata, for
those providers that have the content types and geographic extents
needed by the user. For seamless
content, i.e., large areal extentscounties, states, provinces, and even
whole countries-"searching" would
be replaced by GIs-like interactions
with the registered providers of a
GGIN. First, the user would delineate their area of interest with coordinates derived from graphical in-
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
teraction with a base map or image.
At this point, two options would exist. If the user already knows the
data and information theme types
needed, they could be selected from
a default list. Then, available providers of these themes would be
identified, and the available themes
"activated" on the user's list.
Figure 3 , "A Notional GGIN User
Interface" shows these concepts. An
alternate method of interaction exists for a user who has not yet determined the themes needed for their
application. In this case, after
graphical designation of an area of
interest on a base map or image
takes place, the list of all available
CONTINUED O N PAGE 532
May 1999
531
H I G H L I G H T
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themes would be displayed. Attributes about the themes, including
provider name, currency, accuracy,
and price would be available by
merely selecting the theme name
from the list. Once the user determined that the theme was appropriate, it could then be designated for
use, and when needed, displayed.
Navigation from this point on would
include roaming and zooming as required. For the user, particularly one
with previous GIs experience, this
will be an intuitive set of actions. To
generate and present the list of
themes, attributes, and the data and
information itself, will require that
providers meet a set of standards,
and are members of a GGIN.
Billing of the user will be determined by the themes used, the area
of interest navigated, and other factors such as the scope of the license
subscription to GGIN content. The
result might be that the session is
included within the terms and conditions of the subscription, or an additional charge may be required. In
either case, no action would be required, since it would be handled as
part of the account with GGIN providers.
Enabling Seamless Content
Databases
Inasmuch as most (but not all)
geographic data content
is in
the form of discrete products, one of
the most important aspects of enabling seamless content databases is
understanding and accepting the vision for a Global Geospatial Information Network. This understanding
can readily lead to an understanding of its implications from a business perspective, and to the benefits
that both providers and users can
enjoy.
There are three fundamental
principles that will facilitate the
availability of seamless geospatial
content through a GGIN: an integrated approach, a partnership be-
532
M a y 1999
tween government and industry, and
a standards infrastructure to make it
happen.
An integrated approach would
address how online geographic content would best be produced, cataloged, and published to ensure that
the user experience actually results
in transparent access to the distributed resources. The approach would
address the handling of imagery
data, derived geospatial information
and presentation of the existence of
knowledge. Necessarily, the approach would include the handling
of both government-classified and
unclassified content. The objective
here is that, for those users who
work in a classified environment, a
common approach should allow
them to access and display both
classified and unclassified content.
Both public and private geospatial
content should also be addressed.
Private data, i.e., corporate or government holdings that are restricted
access (but not in any sense classified), also need protection. Yet
these users, like those handling
classified content, should also be
able to seamlessly access and display their restricted layers along
with commercially available
themes. Finally, content that is
available free, i.e., which is in the
public domain, must be handled
along with that which is available
only on a for-a-fee basis. All of these
types of content and restrictions to
access must be a part of the integrated approach for enabling seamless content databases.
A Partnership between Government and Industry
Achieving the vision for a Global
Geospatial Information Network will
very much depend on a partnership
between government and industry to
create and implement the integrated
plan. Though industry can assume a
major leadership role, government
must also fully participate. This is
particularly true because of 1) the
necessity for government and industry to work together on geodata standards and geoprocessing standards,
and 2) the shear volume of imagery
and geospatial content that is available within government agencies
and departments. Organizations
such as USGS, NASA, NIMA and the
NRO, to name a few in the U.S.,
have been producing and storing imagery and geospatial information for
decades. A partnership, through a
government initiative such as the
Digital Earth, would go a long way
toward facilitating a true GGIN.
The partnership between government and industry would be comprised of imagery and geospatial information-producing organizations
from Defense, Intelligence, and civil
government agencies. It would also
include Earth data and information
providers from the commercial remote sensing industry and those involved i n the production of digital
maps and map databases, geospatial
information producers, and those
who design and market Geographic
Information Systems and image processing and exploitation software,
hardware and systems. The Open
GIs Consortium could easily play
the role of organizing these participants with a focus beyond just the
enabling standards for open
geoprocessing, but also as the standard bearer for the GGIN. Recent involvement by the OGC in the Digital
Earth project and the development
of a Reference Model for this activity are a perfect start to putting OGC
standard interfaces to work in the
context of a major undertaking of
global proportions.
The strategy for the partnership
needs to focus on government data
and information production and
gaining CIS-like access to the content that already exists that is either
not online, or is only accessible via
the library paradigm6. In parallel,
commercial imagery and geospatial
content producers also need to be
brought along to produce, catalog,
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
H I G H L I G H T
and offer their content i n accordance with an emerging-and
jointly agreed to-set of standards
that can enable a GGIN. This challenge is not unlike that recently addressed by the recording industry to
develop mechanisms to securely
distribute music7 over the Internet.
The benefit of the government-industry partnership is that it can enable the use of commercial content
by the government to satisfy their
needs whenever possible, thus reducing the need to budget for custom systems and internal production, while at the same time it
enables the growth of a global Earth
data and information industry.
Standards Infrastructure to
Make it Happen
It goes without saying that a
GGIN can only become a reality with
a technology standards infrastructure that enables it to happen. Open
geoprocessing, as advocated by the
Open GIs Consortium and its member organizations, spans applications, vendor tools, components and
platforms. Their objective is to
achieve dynamic interoperabilitythe ability to support requests between distributed database servers
and clients for features and collections of features (coverages), within
a framework that accommodates the
main distributed computing platforms (CORBA and OLE-COM) and
related standards (SQL, Java, XML,
etc.). OGC's members are defining
the OpenGIS Specification that
specifies the software interfaces
that are necessary to achieve
interoperability. Once the standard
interface mechanisms are defined
and adopted by the various Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and
user institutions that comprise the
OGC, transparent access to heterogeneous geodata will result.
There is a second fundamental
set of standards that needs to be developed in committee and established in the marketplace: data content standards and metadata
standards. Data about geographic
features-roads, for example-is not
currently collected in a consistent
fashion in different jurisdictions or
in different disciplines, nor is the
data about the data consistent.
Technologies such as intelligent
metadata parsers will help users
"make the best of a bad situation,"
but agreements and consensus between geospatial communities are
essential if there is to be consistency i n the data layers that are
roamed and zoomed in the GGIN.
The sooner the world's ISVs, data
producers, and major users reach
consensus on geoprocessing standards and geodata standards, the
sooner a GGINwill move from a
mere vision to a reality.
Creating and Publishing
Seamless Content
Traditionally, aerial and satellite
images have been collected to satisfy only particular customers' requirements. The imagery is processed and individual image frames
or strips are produced and delivered
to serve as an input from which to
produce intelligence, to update a
database, or as the source data from
which to produce a map.
As we look to a GGIN, it is appropriate to view imagery collection
and processing and geospatial information production in a different
light. Processing and production i n
the 21st century should be focused
on populating distributed databases
with seamless, global imagery and
geospatial content that is continuously maintained and updated by its
providers.
To move i n this direction, several
"rules" have been developed by the
author for the provider community's
consideration.
1 . Establish
a set of mechanisms for
recording the "requirements" for
populating a set of databases with
imagery coverage and derived
geospatial information. Rather
than taking a "target-oriented"
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING 81 REMOTE SENSING
approach to requirements it is
time to look at the Earth on a geographic cell basis. Each cell could
have quality and frequency of collection assigned to it based on its
volatility, i.e., its propensity to
change. The higher the volatility
index, the higher the frequency of
collection-and geospatial information production.
2. Facilitate access to these global
imagery and geospatial "requirements" by government, commercial, and academic providers. Requirements like the useful data,
information and knowledge content need to be published so providers can access them. The requirements can then serve as the
basis for bidding by those providers who have both interest and capability to satisfy them. [Classified government intelligence
requirements would continue to
require special handling.]
3. Provide mechanisms that allow
providers to register, in a uniform
way, the types of imagery data and
geospatial information, and the areal extent of this content that i s
available, so that the content can
be transparently accessed online
by users. This registry of providers
is fundamental to the operation of
a GGIN. It makes transparent access possible, just as an Internet
Domain Name is quickly and automatically linked with its corresponding IP address on the
Internet today. This functionality
is not like search, but appears to
the user as a lookup process that
results i n a listing of available
themes. Essential to this capability is the development and implementation of data content standards and metadata standards. It
makes sense to support the FGDC
standards being developed in the
US and the similar I S 0 standards
being developed internationally.
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H I G H L I G H T
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4 . Create seamless imagery data
and
geospatial information contentnot discrete products-that allows
spatially smooth and temporally
continuous access, through a GISlike interface. Though this is item
number four, it is the fundamental
rule, as it enables a GGIN with
useful content that has no boundaries or limitations.
5. For existing, discrete product-ori-
ented content, create mechanisms
that support global discovery, i.e.,
the ability to easily search multiple
providers' holdings simultaneously
to find the distributed products.
This is an issue of practicality
and efficiency. Users need to be
capable of rapidly conducting
searches across multiple providers
just as the Metacrawlels provides
efficient parallel searching of the
catalogs of nine search engines.
This capability depends on
metadata standards
6. Recognize that online data a n d in-
formation will consist of a mix of
imagery and geospatial con tent
that is: unclassified, and available
free to the world; unclassified, and
available for-a-fee to the world; unclassified, and available for-a-fee
to restricted users; classified and
available free to restricted users;
classified, and available for-a-fee
(from the government); classified,
and available from industry (in
situations where government operations have been privatized). All
of these situations have to be addressed in the standards and design of a GGZN.
7. Always focus on the endgame-
the vision for a Global Geospatial
Information Network-and the
Digital Earth view of some of its
distributed content. Too frequently
only one aspect of the problem is
addressed-the standards, the
user interface, the database
schema. To achieve a functional
GGZN, we must focus on all of the
GGZN roadmap elements.
It is important to remember that
the vision for a GGIN is not just a
set of open geoprocessing standards-mere books on a shelf, nor is
it just an array of applications and
systems that comply with these
standards and enable open
geoprocessing, nor is it the content
of any single provider. But rather, a
GGZN is a globally distributed network of databases containing seamless imagery, geospatial information,
and knowledge of and about the entire world. This content is produced,
cataloged, published and maintained by multiple providers that offer transparent access to a community of global users. This online
content can be used as a foundation
for additional data and information,
it can be used to solve a variety of
problems, and it can address a spectrum of users from student to
policymaker.
Summary
In recent years, there has been tremendous growth in online data and
information services that offer endto-end solutions, but to date most of
their content has been textual with
limited graphics and imagery. These
services would be substantially
complemented by access to imagery
and imagery-derived geospatial information.
Imagery and geospatial information production must focus more on
seamless content generation and
less on the production of discrete,
file-oriented products. When seamless production becomes a routine,
users will be able to depend more on
access to content-and less on ownership of products. Then, and only
then, will users be able to focus on
their problem-and its solution with
online imagery and geospatial information-rather than on the acquisition of the data. As industry embraces seamless production and this
vision for a Global Geospatial Znformation Network, governments will
recognize that a focus strategy (for
their internal production) will be
possible and appropriate because
commercial content will satisfy
their needs. Over time, governments
will be more likely to use commercial online data and information
services, and less likely to outsource
production of products that are
unique to their needs.
Then there will be a GGZN as
ubiquitous as the Internet itself.
' Revenue for carrying data on the
Internet is expected to more than
double worldwide to $19 billion in
2002,as the cost of transferring data
falls and demand rises. The cost of
transferring one terabyte of data, the
equivalent of 25,000music CDs, will
fall to under $10,000by the year 2000,
dropping even further to $300 three
years later. That compares with
$80,000last year. -Datamonitor
See the Open GIs Consortium
website (www.opengis.org) for further
information about this initiative.
In February 1995, Corona, a photo reconnaissance program in operation
from 1960 to 1972 was declassified,
and 800,000Corona images were
transferred to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
For further information, see the National Reconnaissance Organization
website (www.nro.odci.gov/
corona.htm1). Also, see "Corona: Success for Space Reconnaissance,"
PEbRS, Vol. 61,No. 6,June 1995.
For further information about the
Digital Earth, see the NASA website
(digitalearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/).
See, The Digital Earth: Understanding ourplanet in the 21st Century, by
A1 Gore. Also available at the NASA
website (digitalearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/
VP19980131.html)
CONTINUED ON PAGE 538
H I G H L I G H T
CONTINUBDFROM PACE 535
The "Library Paradigm" revolves
around the search for discrete raster
image or vector files, review of associated metadata, selection from a
search results list, and subsequent
download of the selected item(s) to
the user's host computer.
The mission of SDMI [Secure Digital
Music Initiative] is to enable consumers to conveniently access music in
all forms, artists and recording companies to protect their intellectual
property and technology and music
companies to build successful businesses in their chosen areas. To accomplish this goal, SDMI will actively help develop an open and
interoperable means for providing security for copyrighted music in all existing and emerging digital formats
and their respective delivery channels. For more about SDMI, visit their
website at www.riaa.com/tech/
sdmiinfo.htm.
Visit this site (www.go2net.com/
search.htm1) on the Internet and see
how efficient and complete a search
can actually be.
Gary W. Fuller is the director of
Development Programs at Space Imaging of Thornton, Colorado, where he
works closely with the U. S. federal
government market, and is responsible for the company's Internet Commerce initiatives. He works out of his
home office in Oakton, Virginia. Gary
has 28 years in the imagery and
geospatial community and has
worked in government and industry
on a variety of projects involving
digital image processing, photographic production, and softcopy exploitation. Recently he has been involved in business and strategic
planning. He can be contacted via email at [email protected].
Resource '99, formerly the ASPRS Directory of the Mapping
Sciences, was published in the
March 1999 issue of PEbRS. Below, Vexcel Corporation is
shown with their logo. Originally, their logo was shown
with the Vexcel Imaging Corporation. For more information
on Resource '99 and ASPRS,
visit our website at
www.asprs.org.
Vexcel Corporation
Nautilus Court
Boulder, CO 8 0 3 0 1
4909
303-583-0229; 303-444-0470
(fax)
[email protected] (e-mail);
www.vexcel.com
VEXCEL
Image I n f o d o n Engineen'ng
,
rn
CORRECTION
I
.
1
Due to n8ITffrin printing the April 1999 cover
of PE&RS, we have reprinted it here at the
proper resolution so
readers can see how the
image should have appeared. We regret any
misconceptions that
may have been caused.
TfusImage shows Airbome
V~sible/InfraredImaging
Spectrometer (AVIRIS)
data acquired by Jet Propulsion Laboratory m OCtober 1994 and processed
by Analytical Imaging and
Geophysics,Boulder, Colorado using ENVP, the "Environment for Visualizing
Images':
For addlilonrl Information
about E N V I , contact
Rwswarcb Sys1wms Lac.,
3 0 3 - 7 8 6 - 9 9 0 0 ;
enviOrsinc.com
or
www.rslnc.com. ENVI la
a reglstwred trademark
of Better Solutlans Consultlng LLC. Analytical
Imarlng and Owophysicm
can bw contactwd at
www.algllc.com.
An
MPEa animation of thmsa
data i s available a t
www.wnvl-sw.eom.
I
538
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PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING