Summary

Description

In order to facilitate wider understanding and use of NASA and other scientific data sources through publicly available and familiar tools, such as the Google Maps, Payload Systems Inc. proposes to develop a flexible scientific data search, analysis and visual presentation tool suite. This suite will use a modular plug-in approach to retrieve and translate information from user-selected networked data sources into semantic-web representations and then apply rule-based processing to integrate the translated content with geospatial display tools, such as Google Maps and Google Earth, and with sources of domain expert commentary about the displayed information. Our Phase I effort will analyze data retrieval, processing and display architectural approaches, such as web browser plug-in applications versus server centric approaches, and select the best for this type of application. Phase I will prototype key elements, such as data retrieval and rule-processing, to assess the performance and feasibility of the selected approach and create a preliminary design. Our Phase II effort will then advance the design and provide a polished implementation of the tool suite.