Research Experience for Undergraduates in Ocean, Marine, and Polar Sciences
Elizabeth City State University, Summer 2012

Utilizing Data Sets from the CReSIS Data Archives to Visualize Greenland Echograms Information in Google Earth

Abstract:
Since 1993, the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) has been gathering ice thickness data in Greenland. This information is in various formats such as: Postscript Document Format (PDF), Joint Photographer Expert Group (JPEG), Keyhole Markup Language (KML), and Comma Separated Values (CSV). These formats display data in individual visualizations while another format; Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) will display multiple sources of data, but in the proprietary software application only. The goal of this project was to combine the non-MATLAB visualizations into one window utilizing the PHP Hypertext Preprocessor scripting language and Google Earth. These product files would be simple in their construction, easily adaptable to new data formats, and provide continued display of newly acquired data. The PHP Hypertext Preprocessor language was used to modify the Keyhole Markup Language files to add description tags in order to display data from other formats. The combined files were displayed in the geographical program Google Earth available as a free download to users.

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