Earth Science Markup Language (ESML): a solution for scientific data-application interoperability problem

TitleEarth Science Markup Language (ESML): a solution for scientific data-application interoperability problem
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2004
AuthorsRamachandran, R, Graves, S, Conover, H, Moe, K
JournalComputers & Geosciences
Volume30
Pages117-124
Date Published2004/2
AbstractInterchange technologies facilitate seamless interactions between applications, tools and services with datasets in heterogeneous formats. The Information Technology and Systems Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville is developing an interchange technology focused on scientific data in general, and particularly on the vast amounts of remotely sensed Earth Science data. This interchange technology consists of the Earth Science Markup Language (ESML) and a related library of programming utilities. ESML, based on the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), allows data format structure descriptions to be written in a standard manner. ESML is unique in that it is not another new data format, instead it is a external structural metadata based solution for decoding existing formats. The effort involved to describe legacy data formats in ESML is small. ESML and the associated software library will allow wider interoperability of Earth Science services and tools, enabling Earth Scientists to work more easily with data in a variety of formats. This interchange technology will facilitate the development of data format independent search, visualization, and analysis tools. This paper will describe this interchange technology and compare it with similar XML based efforts.
URLhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V7D-4BF5TY9-2/2/430d6854b74d0499f30ce80b57d51966
Involved Persons: 
Rahul Ramachandran
Sara Graves
Helen Conover
Karen Moe