by Arik Katz
28. February 2010 12:05
What is TerraCatalog?
In addition to its exciting new-and-improved capabilities, the upcoming TerraBuilder Version 6.0, features an effective means of organizing and managing your data sources. The new TerraCatalog component indexes all imagery and elevation raster sources and TerraBuilder projects found on your local and network drives, providing an integrated and unified view of all your data sources. TerraCatalog can link to your organization database to support multiple users or use a personal database for single user mode.
TerraCatalog not only stores links to your source and project files, it stores all geospatial and attribution information it retrieves from your raster files, such as coordinate system and metadata, as well as TerraBuilder related information, such as cache files and polygons. You can even view a preview image of your raster data using the TerraCatalog plug-in system.
TerraCatalog’s sophisticated search engine uses advanced textual and spatial search mechanisms so that you can quickly find the geographical data you want. Advanced management tools allow you to keep your data as current as possible.
TerraCatalog and TerraBuilder
TerraCatalog is seamlessly integrated into your TerraBuilder 6 workflow, allowing you to easily load and update your spatial content. It’s easy to kepp you catalog current with your latest projects. All you have to do is select the “Bind to Catalog” option and all new sources and projects are automatically imported to the catalog. The connection between TerraCatalog and your project’s data sources is expandable using TerraCatalog API. Enable automatic updates of catalog sources based on modifications to related project sources. Benefit from your team members’ source manipulations by enabling automatic replacement of project sources with newer versions in the catalog whenever a project file is opened.
TerraCatalog manages your connections to external raster databases and servers such as WMS and ArcSDE servers, storing connection information , such as location, user name, and password so that you don’t need to reenter this information each time you want to connect. Using the TerraCatalog Manager, this information can be shared with all the TerraBuilder users in your organization.
What’s coming next?
TerraExplorer Pro 6 will feature an advanced version of the TerraCatalog component that supports feature layers, graphical resources and other TerraExplorer related sources. TerraGate 6 will also include the TerraCatalog component and feature OGC standard web interface so that any application that reads the standard OGC protocol can access your catalogs.
