Remote Data Toolkit
Seamless Access to Remote Data Within IDL
A main challenge facing scientists today is the difficulty of interacting with large, remotely-located datasets. Often the data is too large to copy to a local computer for analysis. Services such as the Data Access Protocol (DAP) provide a method for accessing remote data, but do not provide the tools necessary for users to easily browse and interact with remote data in the way IDL users are accustom. The Remote Data Toolkit provides a user-friendly, graphical way to explore and interact with datasets served with DAP.
Get All the Data You Need
Often, you don't need all the data from a file, and copying the entire file to a local machine just to select a subset is time consuming and impractical. With the Remote Data Toolkit, the user can chose any subset of a remote dataset to export to a local IDL session. This allows users to avoid time-consuming copying of large data to a local machine.
Take Your Data On the Road
Taking all your data files with you on your laptop can be difficult or even not possible, but with the Remote Data Toolkit, users can access their data from anywhere. The DAP protocol works over HTTP, so users avoid most firewall issues. This means you can browse through your data from anywhere in the world, select new data that you need, and download just that data to your laptop for display or analysis.
Easily Share Your Data
Large datasets can be difficult to navigate for new users, especially when the data is remote. With the Remote Data Toolkit, a user can explore large, multivariate datasets without any previous knowledge of the structure of the data. Also, users can look at all aspects of the data, including attributes and metadata tags. This is ideal for new collaborators and graduate students.
Flexibly and Seamlessly Access Your Data
Users want to work with their data in many ways. The Remote Data Toolkit is designed for users to interact with remote data, but the browser works with local data too, allowing users to work seamlessly with all data. Users can export data to the IDL command line or to the iTools system, using either the graphical interface or a command line interface. And because DAP simplifies file access by providing a common interface, users can access many data formats with the Remote Data Toolkit: HDF4, HDF5, netCDF, CSV, GrADS, GRIB, MATLAB, SQL databases, and more.