OpenTopography

Cyberinfrastructure

Introduction:

The OpenTopography Facility provides online access to high-resolution topography data and related processing tools through cyberinfrastructure developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at University of California, San Diego.  The term “cyberinfrastructure” was coined by the National Science Foundation in 2003 to describe the computer networks and application-specific software, tools, and data repositories that support research in a particular discipline.  OpenTopography’s cyberinfrastructure grew out of early research and development work in the NSF-funded GEON Project, and is now independently funded by the NSF to support high-resolution data access for Earth science research.

OpenTopography System:

OpenTopography harnesses a variety of software and hardware resources to provide data access and processing functionality.  In general, we utilize open source software and libraries to build the OpenTopography system.  Because the project is run out of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, we are also able to leverage the significant software and computing resources available through SDSC.  For more information about the OpenTopography’s production cyberinfrastructure, please see our system architecture diagram and the related summary of system components.

For more information about the OpenTopography’s production cyberinfrastructure, please see our system architecture diagram and the related summary of system components.

Cyberinfrastructure Research:

In addition to running the production OpenTopography Facility, we are also engaged in research and development activities that are related to, or significantly leverage, our existing cyberinfrastructure and data management and processing capabilities. For more information on OpenTopography-related cyberinfrastructure research please see our cyberinfrastructure research page.