GDAL Enhancements for Interoperability with EOS Data

Historically, Earth Observing Satellite (EOS) data products have been difficult to consume by GIS tools, weather commercial or open-source. This has resulted in a reduced acceptance of these data products by GIS and general user communities. Common problems and challenges experienced by these data users include difficulty when:

Consuming data products from NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) that pre-date modern application software with commercial and open-source geospatial tools; Identifying an initial approach for developing a framework and plug-ins that interpret non-compliant data; Defining a methodology that is extensible across NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), scientific communities, and GIS communities by enabling other data centers to construct their own plug-ins and adjust specific data products; and Promoting greater use of NASA Data and new analysis utilizing GIS tools. To address these challenges and to make EOS data products more accessible and interpretable by GIS applications, a collaborative approach has been taken that includes the NASA Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC), Esri, George Mason University (GMU), and the Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) Group to create a framework and plugins to be applied to Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL). This framework and its plugins offer advantages of extensibility within NASA EOSDIS, permitting other data centers to construct their own plugins necessary to adjust their data products. In this session findings related to the framework and the development of GDAL plugins will be reviewed. Specifically, this session will offer a workshop to review documentation and training materials that have been generated for the purpose of guiding other NASA DAACs through the process of constructing plug-ins consistent with the framework as well as a review of the certification process by which the plugins can be independently verified as properly converting the data to the format and content required for use in GIS software.