The Astrogeology Science Center, part of the United States Geological Survey, has had a rich 50 year history of participation in space exploration and planetary mapping. The Center was established in Flagstaff, Arizona to provide lunar geologic mapping and assist in training astronauts destined for the Moon. Throughout the years, Astrogeology has participated in processing and analyzing data from numerous missions to planetary bodies in our solar system, assisted in finding potential landing sites for exploration vehicles, mapped our neighboring planets and their moons, and conducted research to better understand the origins, evolution, and geologic processes operating on these celestial bodies.
Trent Hare has worked at Astrogeology for over 25 years and will share his experiences working with data from various planetary missions and his latest focus on image processing and developing various cartographic mapping standards to help the planetary community with data interoperability and GIS overlay analysis.
He continues to work with several U.S. and international research institutions on geospatial standards such as standardized image formats, digital geologic mapping conventions, and notably, on-line mapping services as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The OGC is a consortium of more than 500 international companies, universities and government agencies which define standards such as the OGC Web Mapping Services (simple image maps), Web Feature Services (feature streaming), Web Coverage Services (rich scientific data streaming), and Catalog Services for the Web (data searching and discoverability). While these standards were developed for application to Earth-based data, they have been modified to support the planetary domain. The strength of using an OGC approach is that it provides consistent data interfaces. OGC data streaming standards are well supported by enterprise level GIS and remote sensing applications, as well as light-weight and open-source data viewers.
Trent will speak to the successes and continued challenges for using OGC standards within the planetary domain.
