Datacubes

Datacubes, i.e.: multi-dimensional raster data, are modelled by Grid Coverages in terms of standards; the corresponding datacube service model is represented by OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) with its datacube analytics language Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS).

Historically, datacube services have first been proposed in [1], although not yet called like this. A general datacube definition is provided on Wikipedia, see also Wikipedia's Array Databases for scalable services on such structures. A crisp definition of what makes up a spatio-temporal geo datacube in terms of data and service properties is given by the Datacube Manifesto ( local copy).

In OGC, a Datacube Domain Working Group (Datacube.DWG) has been proposed by the Coverages.DWG at the Technical Committee Meeting in Southampton in September 2017 with the Datacube.DWG charter attached, as submitted to OGC. Initial Charter members listed are Jacobs University, rasdaman GmbH, NASA, European Union Satellite Center, Digital Globe, KEY Corp. As OGC has not yet rolled out the Charter for public discussion as of today (2019), at OGC TC meetings datacubes are being discussed as part of the Coverages.DWG meetings, given that the OGC coverage and service models, Coverage Implementation Schema and Web Coverage Service, adequately models regular and irregular spatio-temporal grids (and beyond).

-- PeterBaumann - 12 Sep 2017

[1] P. Baumann: Language Support for Raster Image Manipulation in Databases. Proc. Int. Workshop on Graphics Modeling, Visualization in Science & Technology, Darmstadt/Germany, April 13 - 14, 1992, Springer 1993, pp. 236 - 245