Dr. Thomas Bahr
Senior Consultant
Exelis Visual Information Solutions
Germany

Abstract
Geospatial Data Analysis Using the Software Development Framework IDL (Interactive Data Language)

The geospatial industry is gradually moving away from the traditional workflow in which teams of analysts use desktop software to produce geospatial products. Geospatial analysis is being pushed towards automated processes which reside in the cloud. End user software is moving towards task-specific tools, many of which are accessed from mobile devices. The ability to build custom geospatial processes is supported by the software development framework IDL (Interactive Data Language).

IDL is a programming language based on intuitive and easy-to-learn rules and conventions, with an extensive library of prebuilt routines for the analysis and visualization of geospatial imagery and other types of data. It provides built-in support to access both common formats and hierarchical scientific data formats, as well as custom binary and ASCII formats. Users can receive data from remote servers or write files to a disk at a remote location using common protocols. IDL acts as a client to HTTP and FTP servers, and provides access to common Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) servers such as Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS).

Moreover, IDL is a flexible and extensible language that supports two-way interaction with other applications, including those developed in C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, and more. Programs and libraries written in other languages can be called from within IDL, or IDL can be called as a subroutine in applications written in other languages.

This design allows application developers to build customized applications using IDL and other programming languages that leverage the power of IDL's data analysis algorithms for consumption via web, mobile, and other handheld devices.