E-Planet

Ryan has been experimenting with Yahoo Pipes and has combined multiple feeds for blogs maintained by some of us ERDAS folks.

It is (appropriately) called e-planet. Thanks Ryan!

Raster and Vector Format Support

Currently TITAN supports raster and vector formats via GDAL/OGR by default. With an ERDAS IMAGINE plugin due out August 2008 TITAN will to tie into IMAGINE libraries, greatly extending TITAN raster format support. A user must have ERDAS IMAGINE installed for this plugin to work.

IMAGINE libraries support some of the same formats as GDAL. IMAGINE libraries can override format support by GDAL, meaning, if IMAGINE is installed then it can be used for all formats it recognizes with exception of ECW/ECWP. If IMAGINE is not there then TITAN falls back on GDAL. This will be a preference setting.

For ECW/ECWP, we have written our own fast implementation available as part of the TITAN Client download August 2008.

Formats supported by GDAL/OGR: These formats are supported to the extent which the open source GDAL/OGR libraries are capable of loading. If you would like to add your own formats or require support for trouble with an existing format, please visit the Open Source Geospatial Foundation page for GDAL/OGR.

Local Raster Support

• MS Windows Device Independent Bitmap
• First Generation USGS DOQ (.doq,.doq1)(old style)
• New Labeled USGS DOQ (.doq,doq2)(new style)
• Military Elevation Data(.dt1)
• ERMapper Compressed Wavelets(.ecw)
• ENVI .hrd Labeled Raster
• Envisat Image Product (.n1)
• EOSAT FAST Format (FAST)
• TIFF with a world file
• MrSid with world file
• GeoTIFF
• Hierarchical Data Format Release 4 (HDF4)
• Hierarchical Data Format Release 5 (HDF5)
• ERDAS Imagine (.img)
• JPEG JFIF
• JPEG2000 (.jp2,j2k)jp2ecw
• JPEG2000 (.jp2,j2k)jp2MrSID
• Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database (MrSID - 2000)
• National Imagery Transmission Format (NITF 2.1)
• USGS SDTS DEM(*CATD.DDF)
• AVHRR
• USGS Optional ASCII DEM (and CDED)
• Portable Network Graphics (.png)
• Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
• FIT Image

Local Vector Support

• ESRI Shapefile
• Mapinfo File
• Microstation DGN
• TIGER

Formats supported via IMAGINE plugin (August)

• SPOT DIMAP
• DTED
• ERDAS 7.5 LAN
• ERDAS 7.5 GIS
• ENVI
• EROS-A1 Level 1A
• RPF Frame
• RPF Overview
• RPF TOC
• ER Mapper
• EOSAT FAST (FAST)
• TIFF
• GeoTIFF
• HDF
• IMG
• JPG
• MrSID
• NITF 2.0/2.1 (classified data)

Formats supported via Defense Productivity Module extension to ERDAS IMAGINE (August)

• TFRD (.tfrd) (classified data)

New ERDAS Video

Check out the video Introducing the New ERDAS: geared towards the GeoInt community and a nice job covering the myriad of new solutions provided by ERDAS supporting the entire ‘geospatial business system.’

TITAN is a small part of this presentation (near the end around time marker 7:20) Erin presents TITAN as a ‘connection tool’, acknowledging that TITAN falls under the Connect category of the broad, 4-part geospatial business system solution that ERDAS now offers.

I really like this slide the Defense teams made for TITAN...it’s hard to sum up TITAN in one slide and they’ve done an excellent job.

A couple of points I’d like to clarify however: At one point Erin states that:

‘The base for TITAN is a 3D globe, however the uniqueness behind TITAN is not the globe, but the Geospatial Instant Messenger.’

The TITAN Client is comprised of two components: the Geospatial Instant Messenger (GeoIM) and the TITAN Viewer (the 3D globe), both carrying tremendous value. Depending on the application, either component may be of greater importance to a particular user. In Defense, the Viewer carries a heavy weight. Not to diminish the utility of the TITAN Viewer, but I make it a point to describe the GeoIM as the heavy-lifting mechanism of ERDAS TITAN. The GeoIM is the component where you publish data, set permissions for access, search, discover, chat with other users, manage connections to unlimited sources of data, and ultimately retrieve data into the variety of applications you use on your desktop. This is a pretty powerful proposition.

The TITAN Viewer has exceptional capability in that you can amass a variety of geospatial data and location-based content and, with the click of a button, share that ‘geospatial presentation space’ with others on the TITAN Network, with permissions. After saving your ‘MyWorld’, you can invite others to switch to your MyWorld and participate in this 3D presentation space. That’s pretty amazing technology too.

One other point that Erin makes that I’d like to clarify:

‘Users can view each other’s data, but they’re unable to access the data from one system to another.’

This is simply a case of semantics: What Erin is describing above is that TITAN does not yet enable true download of shared raster and vector datasets. Currently in TITAN requested raster and vector datasets either get converted to WMS, encoded tile URL (for Virtual Earth) or KML (for Google Earth) before they are delivered. I’ll argue that this is in fact ‘access’ to data. But in my argument I recognize that Erin's audience (Defense realm) may argue right back that it does not.

But soon, Erin will not say that at all, because in 2009 TITAN will enable true download of data. So...any argument over what access means, at least for TITAN, will become a moot point.

TITAN the Proxy

Someone recently asked me:

"Could I have Image Web Server create an ECWP, have TITAN ingest the ECWP and then have TITAN create a WMS that could be ingested into ArcMap?...Kind of a way to get between barriers of different applications. In other words, TITAN would be a proxy.’"

This is correct. In general, TITAN empowers 3rd party applications to ingest any data that TITAN supports. For example, uDig doesn't read IMAGINE (.img) files, and Google Earth default is KML…In TITAN, many different file formats are transformed through a translation layer and can be subsequently loaded into a variety of applications like UDig, Google Earth, ArcMap, GeoMedia, AutoCad…the list goes on.

Consuming local geospatial data: generally speaking, data coming from different sources into TITAN is handled through an open source spatial bridge library called GDAL/OGR.

GDAL/OGR is responsible for abstracting the different formats and providing TITAN with a single representation for reading data and coordinate system information. To see the list of GDAL/OGR supported raster and vector formats go here: http://www.gdal.org. TITAN also supports KML/KMZ models which may contain DAE/Collada models as well. In August, TITAN will also tie into ERDAS IMAGINE libraries, increasing support for even more raster files (note: must have ERDAS IMAGINE for this to work). Also for August we’ve developed our own custom plugin for ECWP using the ER Mapper SDK, and it is really fast.

Consuming web services: The TITAN Client currently consumes WMS, WCS and ECWP. If you want to, say, load a WCS or ECWP into ArcMap: TITAN will transform the WCS or ECWP data into a WMS layer. TITAN can make any random LL request and the pixel data will be fulfilled in the request. This is how the WMS connector works. Other proxy actions:

• WMS, WCS and ECWP consumed by TITAN can be loaded natively into the TITAN Viewer, with no translation
• Loading a WMS layer through TITAN into a WMS compliant application: no translation is applied. It directly accesses the service using the existing URL.
• Loading a WMS, WCS and ECWP layer through TITAN into an application that takes a particular format (i.e. Google Earth consuming KML): TITAN transforms that layer into a KML and then loads it into Google Earth

In August TITAN will enable users to search a catalog of web services (otherwise known as CS-W...think OGC and ERDAS Image Manager), discover and retrieve a list of map layers from the server, retrievable in both WMS and WCS.

The 'Publicization' of Geodata

Check out the commentary to this recent post by James Fee, a revealing and informative thread. http://feeds.spatiallyadjusted.com/~r/SpatiallyAdjusted/~3/293565726/

The post comments on Google and ESRI joining forces to allow indexing of ArcGIS Server services by Google, ultimately exposing those services to anyone who crawls the web. James Fee asks the question: “how do you monetize your information in such a world?”

Responses are mixed, from:

1. things won’t change too much:
‘I suspect that we won’t be seeing much change and silos such as the Geospatial One Stop will continue to exist.’
‘The majority of data is not public and will not be published for free….ever.’

2. to feelings of scarcity:
‘We’ve been squeezed by Google (and Microsoft) with their free data layers already. There isn’t any juice left to give away.’
‘Selling data is only possible if you are the one selling to Google. Everyone else expects it to be free. Shame really because it devalues expertise.’

3. to icky feelings regarding new business models:
‘Sell ads, is that what we’ve come to these days?’

5. to the possibility that this is a good thing, and considering opportunities within a new system:
‘Why shouldn’t I be able to use Google to find data, even if it returns links to non-freely available data?’
‘…Working with Google or other distributors to set up a one-click purchase system for geodata together with free samples and an open format.’

The ‘publicization’ of geodata is definitely a hot topic worldwide. In the US, so many of our government organizations already have mandates to make geodata public. This is not so for much of the rest of the world. Europe has set the stage with the INSPIRE Directive, established to create a framework for sharing geospatial data between member states. It emphasizes environmental reasons to share data between policy-makers in member states, and target-users also include citizens of those states, thankfully.

Base Imagery in TITAN Viewer

The base imagery that is seen in the ERDAS TITAN Viewer is coming from a GlobeXplorer data store located in the Bay Area of California. GlobeXplorer, a DigitalGlobe company, is a leading geographic data integration and publishing company, providing online access to the world’s largest commercial library of geographic information.

How it works: When you pan or zoom in the TITAN Viewer, a web request is sent to the GlobeXplorer data store. Image tiles located on those data servers are retrieved and served directly to the ERDAS TITAN Viewer. No GlobeX imagery travels through or caches on GeoHubs at all, but instead goes straight to the clients, and caches locally. Local caching relieves the user from continually having to reload basemap data, a process that would slow things down considerably.

Later this year TITAN will also support the designation of alternative basemap and terrain sources by GeoHub administrators, thereby providing the means to improve upon base data available to users within a GeoHub community. Correspondingly the user will be empowered to browse and select from a list of basemaps provided by participating GeoHubs. The user will be further empowered to select from any local data, other users' shared data, services, or data returned from a search to be used as the basemap in their TITAN Viewer.

It sure sounds like P2P...but is it???

Is ERDAS TITAN built on a peer to peer (P2P) network technology?

Not today. Although the ERDAS TITAN user’s experience resembles a Peer to Peer (P2P) network experience (sharing, discovering, accessing data within a network of users), by definition it is not. In ERDAS TITAN, clients rely on a proxy server – an ERDAS TITAN GeoHub - as a middleman for all communication, indexing, access and data streaming. In a P2P network clients interact directly with one another in some fashion, for activities like communication, data access and download.

GeoHubs process requests, index, stream and cache data, but do not host any data. Instead, data is maintained locally and the GeoHub acts as a relay mechanism, processing requests and streaming data between users. This inherently is an added security feature, as the GeoHub is able to manage the channels between users.

Also to note, ERDAS TITAN has no true download capability (besides the sharing of KMLs) and instead advances the notion of streaming data as a service to clients through GeoHubs.

Future plans for TITAN include enabling optional download capabilities and also P2P sharing for GeoHubs.