The geospatial features of Mediaflux are utilised by Arcitecta Desktop to support the ingestion and cataloguing of geospatial data. Mediaflux supports n-dimensional point data and arbitrary polygons, and can be used to manage rasters, maps, documents, etc., as well as temporal data including full motion video.
Arcitecta Desktop can display data spatially, using reference maps (or Google Maps or Google Earth) as a background image. Users can pan and zoom, or for reference maps use the navigator map, to highlight an area to be displayed.
Ingest
Using a simple drag and drop, data can be ingested, analysed, packaged and stored using Arcitecta Desktop. Analysers automatically extract metadata for various data types, minimising the manual entry of metadata. Automatic metadata extraction is currently supported for the following data types: CIB, DTED, CADRG, ERDAS IMG, GeoPDF, GeoTIFF, NITF 2.0, NITF 2.1 and GeoJPG.
Search and Discovery
Arcitecta Desktop enables location based discovery. Users can select a geographical bounding box, or specify geographical coordinates, or use the geospatial feature database containing over 7 million place names to discover data. Users can specify how the data returned relates to the search co-ordinates, e.g. inside, outside, intersecting or covering the bounding box, or within a specified radius from a point.
Search results can be filtered based on any attribute of the metadata (e.g. specified dates, data type, etc.).
Search results are displayed as points, rectangles, polylines, or polygons, as the case may be, and suitable data types can be overlaid on the background map, with user selectable transparency.
Arcitecta Desktop supports layers, which are useful for visually comparing the location and distribution of data subject to various search criteria. Each layer displays results matching the search criteria for that layer in a chosen colour. Displaying different layers in different colours allows immediate visual feedback on the comparative distribution of data. Layer visibility can be toggled on and off for further visual feedback.
Figure 1: Asset Map with filters and two layers displayed
Export
Arcitecta Desktop displays selected data in a grid format. It may be viewed and exported in a variety of specified metadata profiles. Customised metadata export profiles may be created.
Maps, including all layers and grid layouts may be saved by a user for future re-use by that user or other users, subject to access permissions.
Access Permissions
At all times, only those data that a user has permission to access or view are displayed. Search and discovery is subject to access permissions, and only those data accessible to the user are candidates for search completion suggestions and filter operations.
Large Data
Arcitecta Desktop leverages the sophisticated data management features of Mediaflux. In particular Mediaflux excels in the management of large data - facilities are available to package and compress large data, transmit it in parallel, and integrate with hierarchical storage management, leading to significant network I/O and disk I/O savings.
Mediaflux can directly store data and thus maximise opportunities for quality assurance and access control. Mediaflux can also reference the underlying data, which can be stored elsewhere. In this case, however, quality assurance opportunities are reduced as the data is not directly under the control of Mediaflux.
