Abstract. Introduction. The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project

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The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project Adrienne Gauthier 1, Lars Lindberg Christensen 2, Robert Hurt 3 & Ryan Wyatt 4 1 Steward Observatory, University of

1 The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project Adrienne Gauthier 1, Lars Lindberg Christensen 2, Robert Hurt 3 & Ryan Wyatt 4 1 Steward Observatory, University of Arizona(agauthier@as.arizona.edu) 2 ESA/Hubble (lars@eso.org) 3 Spitzer Science Center (hurt@ipac.caltech.edu) 4 California Academy of Sciences (rwyatt@calacademy.org) Abstract The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) will enable access to, and vastly multiply the use of, astronomy image resources. VAMP will enable future innovative exploitation of all kinds of outreach media by systematically linking resource archives worldwide. 214 Introduction In a fast-paced connected world, public astronomy communication must follow the pace of the other players in the electronic information mass market, particularly the gaming and entertainment industries. The problem today is not so much the availability of excellent astronomy multimedia resources for use in education and outreach, but rather suitable access to these materials. Both public and professional sectors need better access to images and videos of stars, galaxies or astronomical phenomena. Despite the high value of astronomical images there is no standardised way to describe or deliver images in a systematic and simple way in the astronomical outreach community. Each observatory has its own manageable online gallery of images, but each facility has its own way of describing and delivering the images. This makes it difficult for an innovative multimedia project, such as a desktop planetarium program, to integrate the most current images from all the major observatories into their applications. The developer has to make custom tailored software tools to access each observatory s image database. Furthermore, many astronomical images found online in search engines are separated from the original source and the richness of contextual information from the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) description. A vivid example is shown

Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2007 Google Figure 1 Screenshot on the left is the result of typing in M16 (a.k.a. the Eagle Nebula) into Google. No Eagle Nebula in sight!

2 Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2007 Google Figure 1 Screenshot on the left is the result of typing in M16 (a.k.a. the Eagle Nebula) into Google. No Eagle Nebula in sight! The screenshot on the right shows how changing the search to a more descriptive Eagle Nebula does produce more astronomy images, but only duplicate and low-res image copies not from the original source, and without the descriptive metadata. in Figure 1. Lastly, the standardisation of metadata and delivery of images is necessary if the astronomical community is to stay afloat in the evolving capabilities of internet technologies and semantic or intelligent search systems. This problem will only intensify over time. Just as most scientific disciplines are currently experiencing a digital data flood of exponentially expanding datasets, so too are Education and Outreach multimedia resources multiplying rapidly. More and more polished, public-friendly materials are being made available to press, educators, and lay people on the web. Vast quantities of value-added outreach material are already available on the web today, but they are not linked systematically, and it is therefore next to impossible for the press and public to search these resources in a simple manner. The VAMP solution The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) offers a solution to the astronomical EPO community. We will provide an innovative and powerful portal for accessing the broad cross-section of astronomy visual imagery resources. The vision is for a one-stop shopping experience for all levels of end-users who are seeking images that also provide the basic infrastructure upon which a variety of derivative applications serving any number of audiences can be based. Figure 2 illustrates how a proposed semantic web application can make use of VAMP and pull metadata and imagery into a web experience guided by the user s navigation choices and self-learning path. New content (images, movies, articles) are located in the vast World Wide Web by using intelligent searches of resources that are tagged with the Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM). The Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) standard The AVM is a defined set of metadata fields that includes an exhaustive astronomical object taxonomy and World Coordinate System (WCS) information. This metadata preserves the descriptive context of the imagery that astronomers and communication professionals have laboured hard to create. The standard includes both the metadata schema for describing outreach images 215

The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project VAMP Figure 2 Conceptual diagram of how a semantic web application can utilise the AVM to pull in related content for the user navigating their astronomical

3 The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project VAMP Figure 2 Conceptual diagram of how a semantic web application can utilise the AVM to pull in related content for the user navigating their astronomical experience. Images, movies, text, etc. can all be seamlessly and automatically shown to the user if the content providers use the AVM to tag their content. Content comes directly from the provider s server. and the method by which the metadata may be embedded within the image file. For data-derived images, full World Coordinate System tags can be used to describe fully the position, orientation, and scale of the image while allowing for a variety of applications requiring the full coordinate context. VAMP database tools can answer queries utilising the full extent of this encapsulated metadata allowing for more powerful search capabilities than any existing today for astronomy. Facilitating the adoption of this standard is a necessary element of VAMP and will ensure that astronomy imagery takes the lead in web convergence technologies. The scope of AVM is specifically tailored to public-friendly astronomical images, allowing systematic indexing of source material even for complex multi-colour composites from multiple observatories. However, it also encompasses artist s concepts and diagrams, simulations, and photography. Ultimately it could be extended to cover a broader range of multimedia resources like videos, podcasts, and so forth. The first phase of VAMP will focus on astronomical imagery and will underpin a larger future effort encompassing all multimedia products related to astronomy. Please see Hurt et al. (2007) for more detail on the AVM. 216 The VAMP middleware The second essential piece to VAMP is the middleware tool being designed, built, and maintained by the Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) at

4 Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2007 Caltech. Based on the concept of a virtual observatory, the primary deliverable of VAMP would be a digital library that stores, organises, and delivers metadata on imagery for astronomy and planetary sciences. Distributed databases will store the metadata and online location of each image/media file on the content provider s server. A push/pull communication system between the middleware and observatory servers will manage the influx of metadata to the system. Back to the users The third piece to VAMP is the delivery of the image metadata and locations back out to the users. The VAMP service will be open to anyone wishing to receive AVM style metadata and remote image locations via sophisticated search strategies. Those wishing to utilise VAMP will subscribe to a web service that communicates directly with VAMP to deliver the metadata and location of the image/media file directly into their applications. VAMP will provide innovative developers with a tool for simple, standard access to outreach imagery and media from a variety of sources, thus encouraging the creation of the cutting edge applications that today s technological public demands. Typical VAMP users are: A museum professional gathering source material. A publisher looking for print-quality images. A teacher seeking related images in different wavelengths. An innovative website or application that needs to access web-resolution content on-thefly in response to changing context provided by user interaction/exploration. A digital planetarium system that issues a real-time query to locate any high resolution imagery to map into a zoomed-in region of interest. See Kapadia et al. (2007) for a description of the first proof-of-concept for such a system. A scientist looking for comparative images at a different wavelength from their own research. The web service will be a simple search engine that will employ many search strategies: metadata filtering, keyword searches, and intelligent (semantic) related content services based on welldesigned taxonomies and thesauruses. In addition, VAMP will design and implement a public friendly interface to the database for the every person who is in search of EPO products. Figure 3 is a simple conceptual model of the relationships between content providers, VAMP Archive & Service, innovative applications, and users of those applications. VAMP will play an important role for part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and will help enable some aspects of the global Cornerstone Project The Portal to the Universe. Current progress for VAMP includes adoption of the AVM by Spitzer Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope (NASA & ESA), Chandra X-ray Observatory, and David Malin of the Anglo- Australian Observatory. The US national observatories (NOAO and NRAO) are currently preparing for adoption. In addition, VAMP has attracted the attention of cutting edge end-user applications. Microsoft s World Wide Telescope has endorsed the VAMP and AVM initiative and is awaiting our first prototype service. We are also working with Stellarium, an open source desktop and plan- 217

The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project VAMP Figure 3 Conceptual diagram of the relationships between the content providers, VAMP Archive, applications, and end users.

5 The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project VAMP Figure 3 Conceptual diagram of the relationships between the content providers, VAMP Archive, applications, and end users. etarium program, by experimenting with their new VirGO module and AVM compliant VOTables to place JPEG images onto their sky grid. Planetariums at California Academy of the Sciences, American Museum of Natural History/Hayden Planetarium, and Denver Museum of Nature and Science have endorsed VAMP and are excited at the opportunities it can present merged with data visualisation programs such as Uniview 1 from Sciss

6 Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2007 VAMP is a collaborative project between individuals representing the Spitzer Science Center, ESA/Hubble, California Academy of Sciences, IPAC/IRSA, and Steward Observatory (University of Arizona). VAMP is organised into four work packages: 1. Management managed by Adrienne Gauthier; 2. AVM standard managed by Robert Hurt; 3. Middleware/Core Development managed by Bruce Berriman, and; 4. Prototypes managed by Lars Lindberg Christensen. If you are interested in collaborating with VAMP or representing your organisation in endorsing the project, please Adrienne Gauthier, agauthier@as.arizona.edu. References Hurt R.L., Christensen L.L., Gauthier A.J. (2006), Astronomical Outreach Imagery Metadata Tags for the Virtual Ob- servatory Version 1.00, (Sept 2006). Hurt R.L., Gauthier A.J., Christensen L.L., Wyatt R. (2007), Sharing Images Intelligently: The Astronomy Visualization Metadata Standard, In Christensen L.L., Zoulias M. & Robson I. (eds.) Proceedings from Communicating Astronomy with the Public Kapadia A., Chéreu F., Christensen L.L., Nielsen L.H., Gauthier A.J. Hurt R.L., Wyatt R. (2007), VAMP in Stellarium/ VirGO: A Proof of Concept, In Christensen L.L., Zoulias M. & Robson I. (eds.) Proceedings from Communicating Astronomy with the Public

Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) Standard - Version 1.1

International Virtual Observatory Alliance Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) Standard for the Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) and other Virtual Observatories. Version 1.10 - DRAFT IVOA