GEOCOMPUTATIONS AND RELATED WEB SERVICES

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1 GEOCOMPUTATIONS AND RELATED WEB SERVICES J. A. Rod Blais Dept. of Geomatics Engineering Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4

Mathematical Sciences University of Calgary, Calgary,

2 OVERVIEW Introduction High Performance Computing (HPC) Geodata, Metadata and Scientific Gateways Web Services, Models and Frameworks Virtual Globes: Earth, Virtual Earth & FreeEarth Virtual Observatories (VOs) and HUBs International Web Collaboration Concluding Remarks

Frameworks Virtual Globes: Earth, Virtual Earth & FreeEarth Virtual

3 INTRODUCTION Geocomputations often involve HPC HPC grows exponentially but unfortunately, data often grow faster in volume and complexity Communication networks are ever expanding in global coverage and capacity Physically distributed data collections and computing services need to be integrated into a virtual system for research, development and public relations Virtual Globe and Observatory approaches provide novel opportunuities for collaborative research and instructional purposes, and future developments

computing services need to be integrated into a virtual system for research, development and public relations Virtual Globe and

4 SOME HPC EXAMPLES Network and Block Adjustments NTS mapping: ~ 2000 stereomodels (7 par./model) NAD cdn networks: ~ 8000 stations ((φ, λ)/stn) NAD27 NAD83: ~ stns ((φ, λ)/stn) Spherical Harmonic Transforms (SHTs) SHT and SHT -1 in REAL*8 to ~ deg. & ord Global grids: equiangular and near equiareal EGM08 ( ) Upgraded EGM96 using mostly Grace data Degrees 2190 and Orders 2159 ~ 5 min. res n

Harmonic Transforms (SHTs) SHT and SHT -1 in REAL*8 to ~ deg. & ord.

5 GLOBAL SPHERICAL GRIDS

6 2001 ANNUAL TEMPERATURE ANOMALY MAP Source:

7 GEODATA and METADATA INTERNATIONALLY: World Data Centers: NASA, ESA: UNIDATA: IAG Data Centers: Aviso for Altimetry: NATIONALLY: NRCAN Geoscience Data Rep.: Cdn Soil Information System: Cdn Water Information System: LOCALLY: University Digital Libraries (DEMs, maps, airphotos, imageries, )

com NATIONALLY: NRCAN Geoscience Data Rep.: http://gdr.nrcan.gc.ca Cdn Soil Information System: http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis Cdn Water Information System: http://map.

8 SCIENTIFIC GATEWAYS i i i i i Geoscience Network Marine Metadata Interoperability NASA World Wind Geo Global Environmental & Earth Science Information System Semantic Web for Earth and Environmental Terminology

org NASA World Wind Geo http://worldwind.arc.nasa.

9 WEB SERVICES A web service is some software available over a network with a formal description of how it is called and what it returns that a computer can understand. Note that web servers, ftp servers, database servers, etc., do not generally qualify as they lack the standardized descriptions of their inputs and outputs. Today, XML provides a language-neutral way for representing data and information. Remember that web services are meant for use by computers and not humans (unlike webpages in HTML, etc.)

, do not generally qualify as they lack the standardized descriptions of their inputs and outputs.

10 WEB SERVICE MODELS RESOURCE-ORIENTED MODEL A resource is anything that can have an idenfier e.g. a service. SERVICE-ORIENTED MODEL A service is something capable of performing a piece of coherent functionality e.g. actions performed by agents. MESSAGE-ORIENTED MODEL A message is the basic unit of data exchanged between agents. POLICY-ORIENTED MODEL A policy is a set of assertions expressing capabilities and constraints.

MESSAGE-ORIENTED MODEL A message is the basic unit of data exchanged between agents.

11 WEB SERVICE FRAMEWORKS LANGUAGE PACKAGE or LIBRARY Java Apache Axis ( ) Xfire ( ) C#.NET ( ) Mono ( ) Perl SOAP::Lite ( ) Python SOAPPy/ZSI ( ) C++/C gsoap ( ) Ruby soap4r ( )

com/en-us/netframework/ ) Mono ( http://www.mono-project.com ) Perl SOAP::Lite ( http://www.soaplite.

12 VIRTUAL GLOBES GOOGLE TM EARTH ( ) Software from Keyhole Inc. (2004) Multilingual and multi OS (Windows, Mac, Linux) Three version levels (Free, $20/year, $400/year) Ground resolutions: 15 cm 15+ m DEM data from NASA SRTM global coverage 3D data in KML language for visualization Google Street View available with version 4.3 (May 07) Errors re MSL (e.g. Death Valley: -86m instead of -420m)

Ground resolutions: 15 cm 15+ m DEM data from NASA SRTM global coverage 3D data in KML language for

13 VIRTUAL GLOBES (continued) Microsoft Virtual Earth ( ) Immersive imagery with city views in 3D Cross-browser and improved printer support Improved location functionality (traveling directions) Global satellite imagery with uptodate map details Online mapping and searching ( ) VE Interactive SDK ( ) VE ISDK provides hands-on, task-based demos of APIs Designer Tools and Technologies for own website

functionality (traveling directions) Global satellite imagery with uptodate map details Online mapping and searching (

14 VIRTUAL GLOBES (continued) Poly9 FreeEarth ( ): Essentially no download with Adobe Flash Player 9 Cross-browser and multi OS (Windows, Mac, Linux) Very light (main application ~ 300 KB) Global satellite imagery with high resolutions for U.S. cities All features exposed using simple JavaScript interface Web Map Service (WMS) supported for GIS applications Data encoded in XML (GeoRSS specs.) displayed easily Imagery for other planets included

(main application ~ 300 KB) Global satellite imagery with high resolutions for U.S.

18 VIRTUAL OBSERVATORIES Web environment for interactive Browsing, searching and downloading data and tools Integrating, synthesizing and analyzing new and legacy datasets Correlating, modeling and assimilating datasets Prototyping and developing new tools and procedures Examples NVO in Astronomy ( ; ) VO in Geomagnetism ( ) VO in IPY (Walker and Kulesa, at AGU Fall Meeting, 2006)

datasets Prototyping and developing new tools and procedures Examples NVO in Astronomy ( http://us-vo.

19 NATIONAL VIRTUAL OBSERVATORY

20 NVO APPLICATIONS Web-based applications thru web browser Downloaded applications run locally on desktop or notebook local workstation, cluster or grid Computationally intensive applications initiated thru web browser carried out on some cluster or grid status info thru web browser visualization of results Toolkits for building other applications scripting languages such as IDL, Python, programming languages such as Java, C++,

browser carried out on some cluster or grid status info thru web browser visualization of results Toolkits

21 APPLICATIONS OF THE NVO STAND-ALONE APPLICATIONS VOPlot for plotting and visualizing the data TOPCAT for graphical viewing table data MIRAGE for image displaying and segmentation ALADIN for image processing and visualization SKYVIEW for viewing images and catalog services WEB-BASED TOOLS Datascope for accessing data holdings and related services Registry for descriptions of data archives and services

23 Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Recent WMAP 5-year Results Source:

24 HUBzero and nanohub A HUB is a web site built with many familiar open source packages: A Linux operating system running an Apache web server with LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) for user logins PHP (Personal Home Page) for web scripting Joomla (Open Source Content Management System) MySQL database for storing content and usage statistics. Web reference: Demo with nanohub:

25 WEB COLLABORATION KEY WEB-BASED FEATURES: Interactive Simulation Tools and Online Presentations Mechanism for uploading New Resources Tool Development Area and Usage Statistics User Groups for Private Collaboration Ratings and Citations and User Support Area News and Events, and Feedback Mechanisms

26 CONCLUDING REMARKS Advanced Geocomputations often involve HPC Web environments are more and more common for HPC Virtual Globes allow interactive displaying of data Virtual Globes are very useful with Satellite Imagery Online globes like FreeEarth also allow presentation of data entirely within a web portal Virtual Observatories offer numerous possibilities for web collaboration and development activities Geoscience collaboration can really be international! For more references: The Virtual Earth: The Soft Earth:

The Arctic Observing Network and its Data Management Challenges Florence Fetterer (NSIDC/CIRES/CU), James A. Moore (NCAR/EOL), and the CADIS team

The Arctic Observing Network and its Data Management Challenges Florence Fetterer (NSIDC/CIRES/CU), James A. Moore (NCAR/EOL), and the CADIS team Photo courtesy Andrew Mahoney NSF Vision What is AON? a