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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9034</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W20-2025-45-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Towards universal building blocks for cloud-native digital-twins</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kmoch</surname>
<given-names>Alexander</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4386-4450</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chan</surname>
<given-names>Wai Tik</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ameline</surname>
<given-names>Guillaume</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Magin</surname>
<given-names>Justus</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4254-8002</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Delouis</surname>
<given-names>Jean-Marc</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0713-1658</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Odaka</surname>
<given-names>Tina</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1500-0156</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bovy</surname>
<given-names>Benoit</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Anne</surname>
<given-names>Anne</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Uuemaa</surname>
<given-names>Evelyn</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0782-6740</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>University of Tartu, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Landscape Geoinformatics Lab, Tartu, Estonia</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Geolynx, Tartu, Estonia</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>LOPS - Laboratoire d’Oceanographie Physique et Spatiale UMR 6523 CNRS-IFREMER-IRD-Univ.Brest-IUEM, Plouzane, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Georode, Liege, Belgium</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Simula, Oslo, Norway</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>29</day>
<month>04</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>XLVIII-4/W20-2025</volume>
<fpage>45</fpage>
<lpage>52</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Alexander Kmoch et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-4-W20-2025/45/2026/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W20-2025-45-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-4-W20-2025/45/2026/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W20-2025-45-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-4-W20-2025/45/2026/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W20-2025-45-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-4-W20-2025/45/2026/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W20-2025-45-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>The exponential growth of Earth Observation (EO) data presents significant challenges for efficient data access, processing, and analysis. Current approaches often involve disparate data formats, coordinate systems, and access patterns, limiting interoperability and scalability. Firstly, the Zarr and Parquet data storage formats have seen wide adoption as a unifying cloud-native foundation for various domains in recent years, including climate, EO, bio-imaging, and genomics. Secondly, Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) such as HEALPix, or ISEA-based hexagonal DGGS are being increasingly used to enable spatial data indexing beyond traditional grids, by using equal-area pixels and location- and refinement level encoding indices. Lastly, the recently published OGC API DGGS standard specifies a lightweight web service API for clients accessing data organised according to Discrete Global Grid Reference Systems (DGGRS).&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;We describe a scalable, interoperable, and extensible FOSS architecture for a modern geospatial data ecosystem, based on DGGS. As an example, we introduce &lt;em&gt;pydggsapi&lt;/em&gt;, a Python server implementing this new OGC standard to serve large geospatial datasets from cloud-native Zarr and Parquet data stores indexed by a DGGS. This novel architecture combines the DGGS data cube paradigm, standardised OGC API DGGS web service access, and cloud-optimised data formats such as Zarr and Parquet as universal building blocks for geospatial data management, enabling seamless transitions between high-performance computing environments and lightweight client applications.</p>
</abstract>
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