GeoLens Technical Information

This page provides technical information about GeoLens architecture, development and technological inputs.

The "Problem"

Geospatial data are difficult to use because they:

Overall Approach

Propose a comprehensive strategy that makes geospatial data more usable and interoperable by:

GeoLens Architecture

Conceptually, GeoLens implements the design below:

(Enlarged diagram is 23KB)

GeoLens consists of a GUI/browser end-application, Data Access Managers and Services, e.g., catalog and query servers, distributed on the Internet.

GeoLens will locate geospatial data on the Internet by using a searching tool called "GeoHarness" to search locator records as prescribed in the Government Information Locator Service (GILS). To determine the content of these data, GeoLens will read their metadata, consistent with the FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata. Then, GeoHarness will extract and catalog the metadata it needs to service queries, storing them in temporary repositories for future use. Other services will be built to support interoperability and fine-grain data query by providing map coordinate transformations and some geoprocessing.

Data will be extracted from a remote server by GeoLens with a Data Access Manager. These will mostly be built by wrapping existing GRASS (and other) code, but will be designed to extract and remodel data consistent with the OGIS Geodata Model.

GeoLens will also consist of a sophisticated GUI and browser end-application. This will be built with JAVA(TM) and will also integrate public domain software available in GRASS, Khoros, EOSDIS IMS V0 and other browsing tools.

Applications Programming Interfaces to GeoLens' Data Access Managers and Servers will be built with the Object Management Group's (OMG) Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) Interface Definition language (IDL). Our design team is currently evaluating the use of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http) and Xerox PARC's Inter-Language Unification (ILU) Remote Procedure Call (RPC) product for messaging between GeoLens clients and servers.

Much of the design of GeoLens will evolve as we learn more about users' requirements and as new technology becomes available in the public domain. In fact, one of our initial goals is to "flesh-out" the details of this schematic during the analysis and design phases of our project.

Technical Documents

These documents describe GeoLens software requirements, architecture and features.

Also see:

Pointers to related Digital Library technologies that have informed design of GeoLens.

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