Fw: Data Access

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,

I had an interesting email from Gary Geller at JPL, which he said it
would be fine to forward here; it is below.

He talks of a couple of interesting things, one is a
pan-organisational open access effort to do with "biodiversity" data,
http://www.conservationcommons.org/ 

The other is this: [[ a NASA activity underway (http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/paa) to make georeferenced jpg images available at no cost for certain 
satellite-based sensors and datasets. ]]

John Graham already is working with some ASTER data at UCSD, and I
think this would be a good thing to mirror and provide interfaces to
in OSGeo's public geodata repository.


jo

----- Forwarded message from "Gary Geller (NASA/JPL)" <gary.n.geller at jpl.nasa.gov> -----
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:44:51 -0800
To: jowalsh at osgeo.org
From: "Gary Geller (NASA/JPL)" <gary.n.geller at jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Data Access


Dear Jo:

I read Frank's OSGEO Newsletter and saw that you are the chair of the 
Public Geospatial Data Committee.  You are likely already aware of 
the information below but if not you may be interested in the following:

1.  In the Biodiversity Conservation world there is an activity 
called the Conservation Commons 
(http://www.conservationcommons.org/), which seeks to make 
biodiversity data of all kinds publicly available.  Much (but by no 
means all) of this is geospatial data that is of general interest to 
many communities.  While it does not mean that all NASA data are 
free, NASA has agreed to the principles of the Commons.

2.  Related to the Commons is an activity just getting started called 
the Conservation Geoportal.  This will be something (very roughly) 
akin to The National Map but with a focus on conservation 
datasets.  All the data involved would be generally 
available.  Again, many datasets would be of general interest, not 
just conservation.

3.  There is a NASA activity underway 
(http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/paa) to make georeferenced jpg images 
available at no cost for certain satellite-based sensors and 
datasets.  Coverage is global and includes historical as well as new 
images.  While this activity is not yet operational it appears likely 
that USGS/EROS will soon make it so (in fact, they are supposed to 
officially decide next week).  While the initial focus was again 
conservation, if USGS takes it over, usage by all types of users will 
be emphasized.

I hope this information may be useful; please feel free to contact me.

Best wishes,

Gary Geller


----- End forwarded message -----

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