A new product from Harris Corp. should help geospatial information users perform multiple searches, using any service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform.
It’s a Web-based search engine called the Geospatial Data Access Retrieval Translator (GeoDART). The commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product is designed for a wide range of government and commercial applications, including intelligence, oil and gas, agriculture, civil engineering, environmental protection and disaster response.
GeoDART is a new generation of the Harris data discovery, management and translation software tools embedded within legacy Geospatial Information Systems (GIS). The tools are being used by thousands of government researchers and analysts. To provide greater flexibility for users and expand the product's application to commercial markets, GeoDART has been redesigned as a standardized COTS tool that can be plugged into any SOA-based GIS.
The search engine can query multiple libraries, catalogs and databases for geospatial and textual data, and provide search results in a common set of attributes for display via the user interface. It supports various external Web-service user interfaces, including the new Harris Geo-STAR product, and provides external credential and identity management.
The company says the Geo-STAR tool is the next-generation of Harris interfaces. The new interface is fully compatible with major commercial Web browsers.
Researchers may use either the standard GeoSTAR interface, for maximum flexibility, or an express GeoSTAR interface to simplify repetitive tasks and minimize interactions. GeoSTAR also enables users to establish and maintain a personal profile, complete with preferences. Queries can be made of multiple libraries and data catalogs visible to the GIS through SOA Web Service Description Language (WSDL) interfaces. Queries can be either ad hoc or saved, based on frequency, dates or events.
"GeoSTAR advances the Harris technology that has been used over the past decade by thousands of researchers and analysts in government settings. It provides both government and commercial users with a more friendly user interface that is faster and much more convenient," said Sheldon Fox, president of National Intelligence Programs for Harris Government Communications Systems. "GeoSTAR supports a variety of imagery formats, enabling our customers to tailor the display format of the imagery retrieved to meet their specific needs."
