Creating and Distributing Antarctic International Polar Year (IPY) Data through the Internet

Chris Rusanowski, United States Geological Survey Center for Research Observation and Science, USA


The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Center for Research Observation and Science (EROS) is preparing a new Landsat image mosaic of Antarctica.   The new mosaic product will have two versions: one 30m, 3-band in natural color and one 15m, pan-band generated from 1028 hand-selected, terrain corrected scenes.  To present this new dataset, EROS is creating an Antarctic website complete with visualization, data search, and identification tools.  Together, the Antarctic Landsat mosaic and website will increase understanding of the polar regions during the International Polar Year.  The interactive elements of the website will support the science community's need to quickly share information and resources along with engaging the public's interest.  The end result is a complete Antarctic science site hosting EROS and collaborator data for free access and download through The Seamless Data Distribution System.

This paper explains the tools, techniques, and processes used by EROS to create the Landsat mosaic and establish the Antarctic science site.

The web portal is built using a combination of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software, EROS custom development, OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) specifications, and Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standards, so the data is easily accessible to the scientific community and the general public.

EROS has a complete production and distribution infrastructure capable of supporting large-volume usage.  The current architecture of the Internet Access and Data Distribution systems can support millions of requests per day utilizing Windows, Linux, and Sun servers together to achieve a robust, reliable foundation for delivering data via the Internet.

As part of the process, EROS has already created a publicly available Antarctic IPY Web Portal prototype to primarily demonstrate the capabilities to host Interactive maps within the context of a scientific website and Landsat imagery within a 3D visualization: http://imsdemo.cr.usgs.gov/website/Antarctica/.

Scientists and the general public will explore Antarctica through map layers of points that identify the locations of current and historical research activities.  Clicking on these points will allow users to view photographs and links to research materials.  Scientists will be able to submit their research and have it published on this site and to data clearinghouses.  Three-dimensional renderings, movie loops, GeoWall visualization, and other specialized services are included.


Keywords: Antarctic, Landsat, IPY, International Polar Year, USGS, Internet Data Distribution, Data Visualization