3.0 DATA REDUCTION & ANALYSIS

3.1 SCIENCE DATA FLOW

The IMAGE team will provide open access to all IMAGE data. Thus there will be no proprietary rights or periods. The IMAGE team will produce and archive the appropriate documentation and software along with each of the IMAGE data products.

The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) has agreed to archive and disseminate the data products in close coordination with the IMAGE Project. The IMAGE Project will not duplicate any NSSDC functions by maintaining a mission-unique archive or storage facility. Since there will be no proprietary rights to the IMAGE data, the NSSDC will receive the IMAGE Level 0 data, browse products, and the processed products with associated software. Similar functionality of different interfaces can be accomplished by sharing resources to cut costs. NSSDC will provide multi-level/media storage and backup. IMAGE data will be rapidly archived and distributed to the investigators and made available to the public using the NSSDC near-on-line archive facilities with a WWW interface over the Internet. The NSSDC will also supply IMAGE data on a variety of media such as CD-ROM.

The IMAGE browse and processed data products will be delivered to the archive in the Space Physics data standard file format such as Common Data Format (CDF), HDF, or Bento (depending on how the discipline completes the standardization process). The data files will incorporate metadata on acquisition information, processing history, software versions, calibrations, and data features. Products produced at remote sites by IMAGE scientists will also be retrieved and archived.

3.2 DATA PRODUCTS

Three levels of data products are proposed: 1) browse products for exploring qualitative trends and identifying events; 2) processed data products such as calibrated images (for quantifying boundaries) and in-depth image inversions (for full quantitative 3-dimensional morphology determinations); and 3) global density distributions.