Large geospatial images discovery: metadata model and technological framework

The advancements in geospatial web technology triggered efforts for disclosure of valuable resources of historical collections. This paper focuses on the role of spatial data infrastructures (SDI) in such efforts. The work describes the interplay between SDI technologies and potential use cases in libraries such as cartographic heritage. The metadata model is introduced to link up the sources from these two distinct fields. To enhance the data search capabilities, the work focuses on the representation of the content-based metadata of raster images, which is the crucial prerequisite to target the search in a more effective way. The architecture of the prototype system for automatic raster data processing, storage, analysis and distribution is introduced. The architecture responds to the characteristics of input datasets, namely to the continuous flow of very large raster data and related metadata. Proposed solutions are illustrated on the case study of cartometric analysis of digitised early maps and related metadata encoding.