HDF-EOS Workshop VI (2002) Source: http://hdfeos.org/workshops/ws06/presentations/Goldberg/HDF5_for_NPOESS.ppt

1. HDF5 for NPOESS Data
Products
Alan M. Goldberg
The MITRE Corporation
agoldber@mitre.org
This work was performed under NOAA contract 50-SPNA-9-00010.
Opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not represent the
United States Government.
Organization: W803
Project: 1400NT01-SE
© 2002 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.

2. The NPOESS Program
● Products
● Requirements
● HDF Implementation (Presentation by Chad Fox / Raytheon)

3. Data Flow Overview
Field Terminals and Centrals
NPOESS-Unique
Collection
NPOESS-Unique
Processing
Application Processing,
Display, & Dissemination
Demodulator
Space
Segment
User
Terminal
Antenna
RF
Electronics
C3S/DRR
FT Processor
Element
IDPS
Central Element
External I/F
Other
Data
Central

4. Data Delivery to Users
● Centrals *
- National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information
Service
Naval Oceanography Command
Fleet Numerical Meteorology & Oceanography Command
Air Force Weather Agency
● Field terminals *
US government
Private
Worldwide users
● NESDIS Archives *
● Misc
NASA (for NPP), SARSat, DCS, etc.
-

5. Major Product Relationships
Propagation
Sensor
Packetized
Data
Sensor
Scene
Environmental
Phenomena
Environmental
Data Record
10011
01100
11100
Comm
Raw
Data
Record
Sensor Data
Record
Environment
Model
A0569F22
3B365CC
369B
707070FFF
Sensor
Model
A0569F22
3B365CC
369B
707070FFF
10011
01100
11100

6. Product Types
● Major products
- Raw data records *
- Sensor Data Records *
- Temperature Data Records *
- Environmental data records *
● Other
- Raw data
- Auxiliary data
- Ancillary Data
- Calibration & correction data
- Telemetry & housekeeping
- Memory dumps and diagnostics

7. Delivery Requirements
● Operational *; platform independence; suitable for
transmission, efficient conversion, and storage
● Standards based: Interoperability*, consistent with Joint
Technical Architecture and National Spatial Data Infrastructure
● Rapid & available*: >95% delivered within 30 min. at Centrals;
15 min. goal
● Self-documenting
● Flexible for over 100 initial products
● Flexible for evolutionary or new sensors and algorithms
● User selectable aggregation (from one granule up to full orbit)
● Delivery: Push or pull; Assured; Secure*
● Efficient: 3 TB per day at each Central
● Consistent interface for delivery to Centrals*, Field terminals*,
& long term archives*
* key requirement

8. Schedule
● Interface with Centrals to be published (draft) in spring 2003.
● First deliverable version of IDPS to be ready in spring 2005
for NPP risk-reduction mission in spring 2006
● Hardware specification for software support at field
terminals to be published by Oct. 2005
● Operational system to be ready in mid 2008 for first NPOESS
launch in mid 2009.

9. Issues
● How much EOSDIS heritage to retain, if any, e.g.
– whether to use EOS swath construct
● Develop an NPOESS profile to handle particular attributes of
NPOESS data, e.g.
variable length compressed packets in RDRs
conical scan geometry
● Assure long-term stability of the standard
● Provide user support
● Suitability for archival use
HDF5 is primarily defined by its API, not the format
–
–
–

10. Backup

11. Data Processing Flow in IDPS
Delivered
Delivered
Raw Data
Raw Data
Metadata
Metadata
Communications
Model
Metadata
Metadata
EDR
Process
Metadata
Metadata
Mission Data
Mission Data
Packets
Packets
RDR
Process
SDR
Process
Sensor
Model
Converted
Converted
Mission
Mission
Data
Data
Environ
ment
Model
EnviEnvironment
ronment
Data
Data
Corr. Data
Corr. Data
Packets
Packets
SDRlike
Process
Auxiliary/
Auxiliary/
Telemtry/
Telemtry/
Hskpng Data
Hskpng Data
Packets
Packets
Ancillary
Ancillary
Data
Data
Ancillary Data
Ancillary Data
Packets
Packets
Format
Format
Format
LRD Only
RDR
Converted
Telemetry
TDR/
SDR
Local
Product
Interface
to Users
Format
EDR

12. Raw Data Granule Contents
● CCSDS Application Packets, unprocessed, generally from one
sensor over a short time interval
● Mission data as produced by the sensor or payload
● Telemetry
● Calibration data & Correction parameters
● Auxiliary data: spacecraft location & attitude

13. Sensor/Temperature Granule Contents
● Radiometrically corrected data, which is an estimate of the
flux at the sensor aperture.
● Mission data by in-track position, cross-track position,
channel, detector, etc.
● Georeferenced in spacecraft coordinates, & intersection with
the ellipsoid
● Generally, not filtered, resampled, etc.
● TDRs are microwave SDRs without antenna pattern removed

14. Environmental Data Granule Contents
● SDRs processed with environmental models and ancillary
data (by others) to produce estimates of environmental
parameters
● Reported as cross-track / in-track values identified in earth
coordinates
unless resampling is specifically required
-

15. Metadata - Scope
● Identifications:
Name / Level / Type-subtype / Sequential number
● Description:
Start-end date-time; Start-end orbit
Subsatellite coordinates; Corner coordinates
● History:
Space segment components / DRR components / Source
files / Algorithm versions / Processing facility / Processing
date-time
● Contents:
Size / Granules
Predecessor quality / Missing data / Out-of-bounds /
Processing errors / Quality free text
● Formats:
Data elements / Structures / Formats
-

16. Metadata - Structure
● As goal, all metadata will be compliant with NSDI standards
- <tag> = “parameter”, where <tag> is defined by FGDC or the
NPOESS extension profile.
● Metadata will be hierarchical, as appropriate:
- file-metadata
● granule_metadata
– scan_metadata
» point_metadata
● Metadata should map to the file naming convention
● Metadata will be included with associated data files, and
accessible as a stand-alone file.

17. Data
● Hierarchical
● Sensor specific format
● “Internal” metadata, such as detailed geolocation, quality,
annotation, illumination & view geometry

18. Why HDF5?
● Familiarity -- Environmental scientists already have
experience with the standard, most recently from EOS
products.
● Maturity -- HDF has shown its "staying power", and has been
available long enough to have matured from user
experiences. NASA, DOE, and others invested heavily in its
development.
● Capability -- HDF was designed to manage large, compound
data sets within high performance computing environments.
HDF5 incorporates new features that are important for
NPOESS.
● Compatibility -- HDF operates on multiple appropriate
operating systems and languages: C, C++, Java and Fortran.

19. Why HDF5? (concluded)
● Availability -- HDF was developed in the public interest at
NCSA, and is freely available. HDF also has many free, share
and commercial supports tools available.
● Interoperability -- The DoD Joint Technical Architecture is in
the process of accepting HDF as a standard for
interoperability among DoD systems.
● Efficiency – Low overhead compared with legacy formats:
GRIB and BUFR. Efficient indexing and subsetting. Support
for data compression.

20. Notional Structure -- external metadata
UniqueFileName.txt
summary_
metadata
file_metadata
granule_
metadata
granule_1
granule_n
granule_2

21. Notional Structure -- HDF portion
UniqueFileName.hdf
root
metadata
data
granule_1
granule_n
granule_2
mission
_data
local_
metadata
other