Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites

摘要

The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) was asked by the Senate Armed Services Committee to investigate the plethora of formats for remotely sensed Earth data. At a workshop held on October 2, 1992, participants discussed the pros and cons of standardizing formats for remote-sensed data, the question of how many different standards are needed, with what else should remote-sensed data be compatible, and who should set the standards. It was clear from the workshop that data from different sources are largely provided in different formats and on different media. Moreover, formats, media, and recording hardware for the same system have often changed over time, leading to situations where old data is virtually inaccessible. Creating order out of the current chaos will be a very difficult proposition, and is likely to cause problems for many suppliers and users of data. Nevertheless, the payoff for doing so may be sufficiently great to warrant a major effort in that direction.