Datacubes: Towards Space/Time Analysis-Ready Data

Abstract

Datacubes form an emerging paradigm in the quest for providing EO data ready for spatial and temporal analysis; this concept, which generalizes the concept of seamless maps from 2-D to n-D, is based on preprocessing incoming data so as to integrate all data form one sensor into one logical array, say 3-D x/y/t for image timeseries or 4-D x/y/z/t for weather forecasts. This enables spatial analysis (both horizontally and vertically) and multi-temporal analysis simultaneously. Adequate service interfaces enable “shipping code to the data” to avoid excessive data transport. In standardization, datacubes belong to the category of coverages as established by ISO and OGC. In this contribution we present the OGC datacube data and service model, the Coverage Implementation Schema (CIS) and the Web Coverage Service (WCS) with its datacube analytics language, Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS) and put them in context with further related standards is provided. Finally, we discuss architectural details of datacube services by way of operational tool examples.