Proposal for RC --> NSIDC data transfer methodology: Rev. 1.11

[Rick Wessels]

Hi Bruce,

I've finally have gotten to read through all of your proposal and I now have a better idea of how one might submit their
glacier measurements.  It's especially exciting now that more GLIMS ASTER data is being acquired this year.  My primary
impression is that to bring all of the requirements into complete clarity, it would be good to see actual example files
that correspond to your example file list.  If you had one complete data set for one glacier, real or otherwise, it
would help us to see exactly where all of the database pieces go in one submission.   Example files would also help us
standardize our input.  For instance, the "segment_left_material" field is defined as char(3) in the data dictionary,
but the standard entries are not yet defined so that we all enter glacier, non-glacier, etc. as the same three
characters in our shapefiles.

I began to setup an arcview session for manually digitizing glacier outlines, etc., to test out how I might incorporate
your proposal ideas using a common commercial app.   I quickly realized that we will need a template or some sort of
avenue script that sets up each new session in a quick and standard manner so that each RC will not have to construct
each submission from scratch.  Do you already have such examples or do you want Hugh and I and/or several RCs  to submit
templates and scripts to distribute from our website?

Also, I am not sure that 8.3 filename format is required (by ESRI) since most of my current shapefiles work fine using
very long filenames.  It seems that the format is more in the ballpark 32.3.  Perhaps 8.3 is only for the C library that
you list?  I believe that there is a restriction to lower case only for shapefile names.

Finally, we now have a few nice ASTER images with the proper gain settings that might be used as standard test images
for everyone to take their first stab at putting together a database ingest.  Andy Kaeaeb suggested that we do this for
algorithm development also.  My preference would be to simply supply the start date/time of one or two images to
everyone and let each RC download the data from EDG and process as they see fit.  This method would not only give us a
chance to work out the submission bugs using "standard" data, but would also let us see if anyone still has problems
ordering or using standard ASTER HDF-EOS data.

Thanks for keeping the GLIMS gears turning.

Rick

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Rick Wessels                rwessels at flagmail.wr.usgs.gov
U.S. Geological Survey  Phone(928)-556-7022 <-- Note new area code
2255 N. Gemini Drive     FAX                 -7014      as of June 2001
Flagstaff, AZ 86001        Main Office      -7000
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