SUPPORTING WIDE USER-BASE IN RASTER ANALYSIS – GEOCUBES FINLAND

Abstract. An initiative has been started in Finland to build a harmonized raster geodata repository, called GeoCubes Finland, to help academic users in carrying out geospatial analysis operations in research projects of diverse disciplines. The aim of the initiative is to expand the adoption of GI methods and tools to new sectors of academic research. GeoCubes Finland is being built in the context of a large-scale program developing national geodata infrastructure for academic studies. The main building blocks of the GeoCubes Finland initiative are: a harmonized, multi-resolution raster geodata storage, a set of standardized mechanisms for accessing the raster contents of the storage, and support facilities for cloud-based geocomputing to help users carry out spatial analysis with the contained datasets.