THETIS

A Data Management and Data Visualization System for Supporting Coastal Zone Management for the Mediterranean Sea

Keywords:
Integrated interoperable system, transparent access, visualization, data repositories, world-wide web, local authorities

Abstract:
THETIS is a system that addresses the frequent requirement of scientists, engineers and decision-makers to access, process and subsequently visualize data collected and stored in different formats and held at different locations. The need exists for tools that enable the integration of these data, together with their associated data models, interpretation models, and visualization requirements. The objective is to build an advanced integrated interoperable system for transparent access and visualization of data repositories, via the Internet and the WWW. The THETIS system can be regarded as a Digital Library of data repositories, which provides tools required for searching or creating new data as well as for the visualization needs of these data. The integration and visualization of data repositories into an easily accessed interoperable networked environment is needed inmany disciplines for both scientific and management purposes. Vast amounts of information exist, collected and processed over many years at different research institutions. The data collections are stored in various databases, files and spreadsheets, or are generated by sophisticated data simulation models of physical and biological processes, and data processing techniques. Data collections comprise numeric data, images, text documents audio and video. Data models are implemented in some program code, which usually needs visualization tools in order to represent their results. One application area where data integration and visualization is particularly needed is Coastal Zone Management (CZM). The proposed system focuses on supporting CZM for the Mediterranean region of Europe.

Partners:
CNR (Italy), INRIA (France), FORTH (Greece), University of Crete (Greece), Alcatel (France), Recormed (France), HR Wallington (United Kingdom), ERCIM

Duration:
1 July 1998 - 31 December 2000

ERCIM's role:
Project co-ordinator

Total budget:
2 448 000 Euro

Funding Agency:
European Commission, IST Programme: 1 300 000 Euro