  For more than a decade there has been a push in the planetary science
community to support interoperable methods for accessing and working with
geospatial data. Common geospatial data products for planetary research include
image mosaics, digital elevation or terrain models, geologic maps, geographic
location databases (e.g., craters, volcanoes) or any data that can be tied to
the surface of a planetary body (including moons, comets or asteroids). Several
U.S. and international cartographic research institutions have converged on
mapping standards that embrace standardized geospatial image formats, geologic
mapping conventions, U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) cartographic
and metadata standards, and notably on-line mapping services as defined by the
Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
