IBM Research to Develop System to Facilitate Retrieval of NASA Data Over
Internet

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y., February 22, 1995 ... Amateur and professional
environmentalists, geologists and others who have a yen or use for earth
science data from outer space may gain easier access to this information
in a few years. IBM researchers are developing a system that will enable
wider public access to NASA earth and space science data over the
Internet. This project has been launched thanks to a $2 million grant that
NASA awarded to scientists at the IBM Research Division's Thomas J. Watson
Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

The IBM grant and 14 other awards totaling $20 million are intended to fund
projects that accelerate the creation of a National Information
Infrastructure (NII). NII is a governmental initiative to provide greatly
improved access to electronic information and to promote the exchange of
information.

For IBM, the NII is part of network-centric computing, a strategic effort
focused on an emerging market in which customers can subscribe to
application services delivered on high-speed voice and data networks. This
enables the sharing of voice, video and other forms of information for
business, research or entertainment, and facilitates anytime, anywhere
access to these forms of information.

The IBM project will use a combination of existing and to-be-developed
technology to enable multiple users to concurrently and interactively
retrieve NASA digital satellite data from a large digital library with
greater ease and efficiency than is currently possible. The researchers
will be developing algorithms -- a set of computer instructions -- that
will perform the retrieval by image content, rather than requiring the
users to extract large volumes of data for later selection as is the focus
of current retrieval methods.

This project will be carried out by the systems analysis and systems
applications group at the Watson research facility. In describing the
significance of the grant, Steve Lavenberg, senior manager for the group,
said: "This is an exciting opportunity for IBM Research to apply its
technology leadership in algorithms, data base technology, image and
signal processing, user interfaces and visualization to help NASA achieve
its objectives. The complexity and scale of NASA's data make this a
particularly challenging project."

IBM will incorporate the new algorithms into a testbed system that will be
installed, along with a high-performance server based on IBM's line of
workstations, at NASA's Remote Sensing Public Access Center (RSPAC) in
West Virginia. The researchers will work with user groups to test and
evaluate the testbed retrieval system, which will be available to users
over the Internet. The initial database will be focused on one class of
data, such as images for environmental analysis and land use studies.

For example, a scientist who is attempting to ascertain the total acreage
of crops being irrigated in Nebraska may issue the following query "Show
me the most recent satellite image of Nebraska." In the image that is
recovered, the area is obscured by clouds. The user issues a second query
"Show me the most recent cloud-free satellite image of Nebraska." In order
to obtain satellite images of Nebraska from the last 12 months, the next
query issued may be "Show me the weekly history of this region for the
last year." At this point, the user is interested in discovering the
distribution of water usage for crop irrigation across the Midwestern
states. The user issues one last query "Find me all regions in the
Midwestern United States that contain the signature identified in recent
satellite images." This will provide the user with a view of the total
acreage of irrigated crops across all the Midwestern states.

While some aspects of these queries could be satisfied by current methods,
most could not. The ability to conduct this type of search and retrieve
the images over the Internet is a primary objective of the IBM research.

"The IBM work will draw on software previously developed by IBM Research
including IBM's Visualization Data Explorer, an application and toolkit
that allows the visualization and analysis of large amounts of complex and
multi-variate data, independent of discipline; and IBM's Query by Image
Content (QBIC) technology, which enables retrieval of images by color,
texture, shape and layout," said Lavenberg. The QBIC technology is
currently available in IBM's Ultimedia* Manager product.

In announcing the awards, given in response to a NASA cooperative agreement
notice, Lee B. Holcomb, NASA's director for high performance computing and
communications, said "We look forward to working with these organizations
to assist the public in accessing and using NASA remote sensing data over
the Internet. They bring a wealth of diversity and talent to accelerate
the creation of a National Information Infrastructure and play a key role
in developing universal access to NASA's earth and space science
products."

The NII effort seeks to enhance U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, improve
electronic commerce, promote quality education, provide better government
services, sustain the role of libraries, improve efficiency in
environmental modeling, and improve health care delivery with controlled
costs.

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