Web-based processing for remotely sensed data

Remote sensing data are usually acquired at large file size and its processing is sequential. As most of the processes performed on the image file are usually repetitive, the processing time is directly proportional to its file size. We adopt the client-server processing technique to process NOAA data in a distributed manner, thereby reducing the program elapsed time. A JAVA socket based on the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is used. Our implementation platform is the Internet with six Intel Pentium-III computers connected by TCP/IP. The objective of the computer program is to process the NOAA level-1B file so as to detect hotspots in a geographic area. Our experiments show that Web-based processing is a viable approach to reduce the time required for hotspot detection. However, there is an optimal point where additional processors beyond the optimum will not further contribute to the efficiency.