Case study of visualizing global user download patterns using Google Earth and NASA World Wind

Ziliang Zong; Joshua Job; Xuesong Zhang; Mais Nijim; Xiao Qin

doi:10.1117/1.JRS.6.061703

9 October 2012 Case study of visualizing global user download patterns using Google Earth and NASA World Wind

Ziliang Zong, Joshua Job, Xuesong Zhang, Mais Nijim, Xiao Qin

Author Affiliations +

Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 061703 (October 2012). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.6.061703

Abstract

Geo-visualization is significantly changing the way we view spatial data and discover information. On the one hand, a large number of spatial data are generated every day. On the other hand, these data are not well utilized due to the lack of free and easily used data-visualization tools. This becomes even worse when most of the spatial data remains in the form of plain text such as log files. This paper describes a way of visualizing massive plain-text spatial data at no cost by utilizing Google Earth and NASA World Wind. We illustrate our methods by visualizing over 170,000 global download requests for satellite images maintained by the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Our visualization results identify the most popular satellite images around the world and discover the global user download patterns. The benefits of this research are: 1. assisting in improving the satellite image downloading services provided by USGS, and 2. providing a proxy for analyzing the "hot spot" areas of research. Most importantly, our methods demonstrate an easy way to geo-visualize massive textual spatial data, which is highly applicable to mining spatially referenced data and information on a wide variety of research domains (e.g., hydrology, agriculture, atmospheric science, natural hazard, and global climate change).

Citation Download Citation

Ziliang Zong, Joshua Job, Xuesong Zhang, Mais Nijim, and Xiao Qin "Case study of visualizing global user download patterns using Google Earth and NASA World Wind," Journal of Applied Remote Sensing 6(1), 061703 (9 October 2012). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.6.061703

Published: 9 October 2012

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available