Report prepared for the Experts Meeting Towards the Implementation of a Global Invasive Species
Information Network (GISIN), 6-8 April, 2004. Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Page 66
8/30/2004
Additional tools available through the
Discover Life system include a
database, IDnature guide building
tools, data import tools, and an
image processing tool.
The Global Mapper does not currently
contain any satellite images for countries
other than the United States. But if a user
selected a country other than the United
States, the tool can provide National
Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) data
at a one to one million scale for the entire
planet. Topozone is willing to host other
people’s maps. For example, for Jane
Goodall, a high quality image of Gombe
National Park in Tanzania is available.
Unfortunately, the remainder of Africa so far
only yields course-grain maps.
Additional tools available through Discover
Life include a database, IDnature guide
building tools, data import tools, and an
image processing tool. The image
processing tool allows users to edit and
annotate images for their Web sites,
IDnature guides, and species pages without
having to own an image processing
software application of their own.
The system is set up so that browsers
assigned to and running on separate
servers can be processing multiple images
at the same time. In a four hour period, a
person might process one or two thousand
images and place them on the Web in
IDnature guides. Import tools allow users to
import large data sets such as Microsoft
Excel spreadsheets, or a Microsoft Access
database of observation records, and plot
the data in the Global Mapper, or integrate it
into an IDnature guide or Checklist in just 30
minutes.
Conclusion
The Discover Life team believes that as a
community they can serve information for
one million species online with identification
tools in five years. To do so, they will need
help from the NBII, the Smithsonian
Institution, Missouri Botanical Garden, The
Field Museum, the Instituto Nacional de
Biodiversidad (INBio), and all of the
members of the GISIN, to name but a few.
Discover Life has developed the technology
and capacity to serve information for one
million species online with identification
tools, images, maps, text, and associated
specimen databases. The combination of
expertise and resources from around the
world must now come together so that we
can provide a very powerful benefit of
serving real-time species information for
everyone.
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