Hey Mick,
The short answer is legacy data and systems. We're working with metadata
and search parameters that are build on lat/long descriptions and
searches. Most of the data are in a polar coordinate system but the
metadata have been reduced to a lat/long bounding box as required by
FGDC and the NASA metadata standards. We also want to include as much
data as possible in the search interface (distributed search), so we
have to support what most folks use in metadata -- the lat/long box.
Long term I guess that we may want to look at how ISO and Dublin core
can use alternative coordinate systems for metadata searches.
cheers,
Greg
Mick Wilson wrote:
btw, matey, I believe there are strong arguments as
why polar coordinate systems (and I mean fully 3-D
ones not constrained to an arbitrary spheroid) are the
only truly natural means for encoding geodata, one
applicable not only at the poles. You guys ever given
any thought to this, or is everyone so locked into
lat/lon that it's become the QWERTY coordinate system?
cheers
--- Gregory Yetman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Hi,
I'm working on a project that focuses on polar
metadata and we'd like to
'enable' the spatial searching for areas that cover
the poles. To do
this properly (avoid false matches), we want to do
the comparison in
spherical coordinates, i.e.,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_coordinates#Spherical_coordinates
rather than lat/long. So we are looking for software
packages
(preferably open source) that will:
- transform a lat/long box into spherical
coordinates
- intersect the result with a given set of extents
and return the matches
- optionally return the area of overlap in spherical
coordinates & lat/long
I think that perhaps GeoServer/GeoTools may be able
to do this, but I
couldn't determine if it would be supported from my
admittedly quick
peek at the documentation.
Any other possibilities?
Thanks,
Greg
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregory Yetman
Center for International Earth Science Information
Network (CIESIN)
Columbia University
URL: http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/
e-mail: gyetman (at) ciesin.columbia.edu
tel: (845) 365-8982
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Gregory Yetman
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
Columbia University
URL: http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/
e-mail: gyetman (at) ciesin.columbia.edu
tel: (845) 365-8982
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