Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) for Geospatial Data - the State of the Art.

HDF is the format for over 3.5 petabytes of NASA's Earth Observation System standard products as well as other NASA satellite remote sensing products. HDF will also be the native format for the wide variety of operational Environmental Data Records from the future National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). The next generation of NetCDF,(network Common Data Form), the popular application programming interface for scientific modeling and observation data, will also use HDF as its underlying framework. A variety of commercial scientific visualization and analysis packages support HDF and HDF has been shown to be compatible with a range of international interoperability standards. This poster will survey the state of the art for representation of geospatial data using HDF and explore remaining challenges to even wider use of the format in geoscience.