SPECCHIO:: a Web-accessible database for the administration and storage of heterogeneous spectral data

The administration of spectral remote sensing data is a key factor for thorough, comparative analyses which take into account the entire information available to the investigator. Today, a great variety of spectrometers operate in the field, giving rise to a strong heterogeneity in data and meta-data formats. For a holistic view on these data, a spectrum database must adhere to certain principles: independence of file format, flexibility to attribute changes, establishment of relations between data, content-based search capability, common interfaces and scalability. SPECCHIO as a Web-accessible spectrum database represents a new approach that incorporates the mentioned principles and overcomes the drawbacks of file-based solutions. It is based on a relational data model and provides a prototype that accounts for the complexity of heterogeneous spectral data. SPECCHIO can be used for administration and storage purposes, as well as for online data inspection. It may also serve as a reference database for the characterization of Earth surface targets. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.