Introduction
The launch of high resolution remote
sensing (RS) satellites with stereo
capabilities and corresponding advancements
in processing software fuelled the
growth of RS and GIS data usage
in mapping, monitoring and management
of natural and manmade resources.
After almost three decades of usage
and archival of RS and GIS data
by several government and private
organisations in an ad-hoc manner,
these organisations are feeling
a dire need of having a structured
storage of spatial databases so
that the RS and GIS data acquired
over several years could be stored
in a systematic way for data sharing
and reuse in forthcoming projects.
Data sharing and reuse of valuable
spatial data resources is an attractive
option that provides substantial
benefits like ready availability
of temporal data for resource monitoring
studies, avoidance of data duplication,
improving turnaround times and increasing
the efficient use of the organisation’s
manpower resources. All these benefits
have direct impact on reducing the
costs involved. To organise, maintain
and operate the large RS and GIS
spatial database in multi-user and
real time applications with heterogeneous
hardware environments as a centralised
online organisational resource requires
special techniques for storing data
with all its associated attributes,
context-specific access controls,
uploading of data to the central
store, finding and discovering the
right data set by the user based
on appropriate queries and search
mechanisms and retrieve and download
the required data sets to the users’
client systems (Ravi Kumar, 2004).
To develop such a RS and GIS spatial
data resource management system,
presently a variety of technology
elements and components like relational
database management system (RDBMS),
object oriented programming constructs,
spatial data modelling structures,
security mechanisms, network communications,
intranet, data transfer protocols,
messaging and directory services
are required (Date, 1987 and 1988;
Appleton and Daniel, 1986; Durell
and William, l985; Bennett, et al.,
2001; Codd, 1983; Brown, and Robert,
1982). Integration of such technologies
into one cohesive system is a challenge.
