General Product Description

The SERVIR website is organized into four main sections with links to these sections appearing along the top of each page. General background about SERVIR can be found on the About page, The Directory lists contact information for project managers, The Library contains documentation from workshops, and conferences, and the Gallery offers a large collection of image related to Mesoamerica. If you are looking for general information about Mesoamerica and the SERVIR project, these links are the place to start.

SERVIR Use Case
SERVIR uses the GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) Social Benefit Areas to organize three of our key products:

• Real-Time Image Viewer: a web-browser for viewing, animating, and downloading the various SERVIR real-time image products
• SERVIR-VIZ: view remotely hosted data and real-time images in a 3D Globe Earth
• SERVIR Data Portal: an online data product and image search system.

Each product is structured around the nine GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas: Disasters, Ecology, Weather, Climate, Oceans, Water, Agricuture, Human health and Energy. Within each benefit area there is a list of corresponding SERVIR data products for the Mesoamerican region.

To understand how this structure can be used, consider the example of a Disaster Manager who wants detailed weather and hazard information regarding a possible hurricane.

She might first go to the Real-Time Image Viewer, select the GEOSS ‘Weather’ theme and choose from a corresponding list of image products like the GOES-12 weather satellite, 24-hour weather forecasts, or ½ hour SATCAST storm-cloud analysis.

After confirming that severe weather is going to impact her area of interest, she then opens SERVIR-VIZ and uses the GEOSS-DSS viewer to overlay real-time 24-hour weather forecasts with flood hazards and landslide susceptibility to determine where these events might occur during the next major storm.

Finally she goes to the SERVIR Data Portal, and clicks on GEOSS > Disasters (in the righ-pane of the data portal) to get quick download links for data on landslide susceptibility and historical flood events so she can load them into her own GIS software for further analysis.

SERVIR Data
SERVIR data products are not located in a central location. The SERVIR participants, partners and contributors all host data resources for Mesoamerica. But, through this website users can locate, and in most cases display data from all sources. In many cases, the data (e.g. satellite imagery and GIS layers) can be downloaded. The SERVIR Data section provides links to two applications: MesoStor and the SERVIR Portal.

MesoStor
MesoStor is Mesoamerica’s first, free on-line data delivery system. It allows anybody with an Internet connection to seamlessly access digital map data of the region (satellite imagery, roads and river coverages, etc.). MesoStor is part of the SERVIR "One Stop Shop" for regional data, dynamic maps, decision support, and interactive visualizations. To use MesoStor you must download GeoSurf, a Java-based Web application designed by the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas. GeoSurf is composed of a client-side Java Applet, which runs on your machine, and many server-side Java Servlets and Applications, which run on the MesoStor servers. Once you have GeoSurf installed you then access MesoStor and fill out the registration information.

For more information go to the MesoStor page >>

SERVIR Data Portal
The SERVIR Data Portal is an online data product and image search system. It contains metadata about all SERVIR data products. Users can search for data by entering keywords or by activating the Advanced Search page and entering a more detailed description of the desired geographical region and phenomena of interest. The Data Portal also contains a web map viewer that will display selected data sets on-line.

For more information go to the SERVIR Data Portal page >>

Online Maps
Much of the content on the SERVIR webpage is geospatial data . The Online Maps section contains links to three applications that display this kind of data. Users can specify GIS layers and imagery and display the resulting data products. Custom products can be produced by combining several layers form different sources. The actual data files are served by a list of web map servers located throughout Mesoamerica and the United States. These applications run in a web browser and do not require the user to download or install any special software.

The SERVIR Interactive Map Maker
The SERVIR Interactive Map Maker is an open source, online tool developed by SERVIR and IABIN to view and query decentralized spatial data from participating institutions throughout Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. This is achieved through access to the participating institution’s Web Map Services (WMS). Any researcher/organization/country with qualified spatial data over the region may participate in the SERVIR Interactive Map Maker by serving their data through a WMS service and providing us the IP address.

Go to the SERVIR Interactive Map Maker >>

The Realtime Image Viewer
The Realtime Image Viewer is an application that allows users to locate and display imagery from several sources that provide data on a daily or hourly basis. Users select data products, and specify time spans via drop down lists. The imagery is fetched from the remote servers and then displayed within the browser window. Animation sequences can be created and controlled by the user. The animations can even be exported as movies for later use.

For more information go to the Real_Time Viewer page >>

GEOSS Decision Support Products
The majority of resources within the SERVIR website is in the GEOSS Decision Support section. This section contains detailed information about all the SERVIR Environmental Monitoring and Decision Support products outside of the MesoStor inventory. GEOSS stands for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. Over the next 10 years the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is leading a worldwide effort to build a GEOSS. GEOSS will work with and build upon existing national, regional, and international systems to provide comprehensive, coordinated Earth observations from thousands of instruments worldwide, transforming the data they collect into vital information for society.

The GEOSS goals are: sustainable management of natural resources, enhancing human health, safety and welfare, alleviating human suffering including poverty, protecting the global environment, reducing losses due to disaster and achieving sustainable development. All of these goals align with the goals of SERVIR.

This section is organized by the nine GEOSS societal benefit areas: Disasters, Ecology, Weather, Climate, Oceans, Water, Agricuture, Human health and Energy. Within each benefit area there is a list of corresponding SERVIR data products for the Mesoamerican region. In addition there is a short description of each benefit area as it pertains to SERVIR and links to applications that give the user the ability to locate and display the respective data sets.

This section will be of interest to all types of users.

3D Visualizations
The SERVIR project has used 3D display technology since it's inception. The original 3D display software suite included products from Skyline Software Corporation. These applications were employed to create and display the first 15 meter resolution Landsat mosaic of the entire region of Mesoamerica. Subsequently, a customized version of NASA's World Wind - known as SERVIR-VIZ - has been developed by IAGT, (a servir partner), for Mesoamerica. In addition the ever popular Google Earth application is now being used for display of SERVIR data. As the 3D technology advances SERVIR will continue to incorporate new applications.

SERVIR-VIZ
SERVIR-VIZ is a customized version of NASA’s free, open-source, web-enabled, 3D earth exploration tool known as WorldWind. SERVIR-VIZ was developed in a joint effort lead by SERVIR research partner The Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology (IAGT). SERVIR-VIZ allows users to use custom tools and view remotely-hosted framework data layers, maps, real-time satellite images, and other SERVIR products relevant to the Mesoamerica region in an interactive, 3D globe environment. SERVIR-VIZ is fully interoperable with NASA World Wind and can be used in conjunction with the numerous plug-ins and add-ons available from WorldWind Central. Please visit this page in the future as the SERVIR and IAGT teams have plans to expand the tools, data, and images available from SERVIR-VIZ.

Download SERVIR-VIZ install file (60mb).

Google Earth
Google Earth is a free-of-charge, downloadable virtual globe program. It maps the entire earth by pasting images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS over a 3D globe. Many of the data products produced by SERVIR and SERVIR partners can be displayed using Google Earth. Look for files ending in klm in this section. If you have Google Earth installed on your computer it will activate and display the data in the kml file.

Download Google Earth >>
Google Earth Users Manual >>

Skyline TerraExplorer
TerraExplorer is a commercial product from Skyline Software Corporation. However, there is a free version available that allows individual PC users to fully interact with a 3D terrain file created with Skyline's TerraBuilder product. The SERVIR project developed a 15 meter resolution Landsat mosaic of Mesoamerica using these tools. With Skyline's TerraExplorer, users can freely connect to this mosaic and navigate over the high resolution 3D region of Mesoamerica.

For more information and instructions see the Skyline Mesoamerica 3D page >>

Anaglyphs
SERVIR has a set of 3-D "anaglyph" posters of the Central American countries developed from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Screen views (small) and full-size anaglyph posters are in JPEG format. The screen views are NOT designed to be viewed in 3D and serve only as a reference. The full size posters can be viewed in 3D on a computer screen at full resolution, but they are ideally designed to be plotted on 36" x 48" paper.

To view the images in 3-D, you need special red/blue anaglyph glasses. The glasses may be ordered from the SERVIR project (Click here) to you can make your own by following these instructions (Spanish or English).