European Node of the urban Application Center for KOMPSAT-1/2 derived products

The well established scientific and technological collaboration between the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and the Austrian Research Centers - Seibersdorf research (ARCS) triggered the idea for the joint development of an Urban Application Center, targeting the needs of the urban planning and urban monitoring domain of governmental and other non-profit organizations. Data from the Very-High-Resolution Multi-Spectral-Camera mounted on KOMPSAT-2 misson (operated by KARI) will provide the major input to a semi-automated processing chain, delivering geocoded and thematic products. As a first step the thematic information extracted from the satellite data will use a classification scheme based on 6 classes. The European Regional Node, located in ARCS, of the Urban Application Center will provide coverage of larger cities in Europe, Africa and the Near East. To access the Urban Application Center for searching the catalog, presenting and selecting the results and later to access the available data at the Urban Application Center a WebMapServer (WMS) has been implemented. The OpenSource WMS of the University of Minnesota, which already provides a WebFeatureServer (WFS) and soon will provide a WebCoverageServer (WCS), together with the spatial enabled PostGIS/PostgreSQL database was chosen and extended to the special needs of the intended services provided by the Urban Application Center.