Mirador: A Simple Fast Search Interface for Global Remote Sensing Data Sets

A major challenge for remote sensing researchers is searching and acquiring relevant data files for their research projects based on content, space, and time constraints. Several structured query (SQ) and hierarchical navigation (HN) search interfaces have been developed to satisfy this requirement. However, the popularity of free-text (FT) search in the general domain led the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center to develop an FT search interface named Mirador that supports space-time queries, including a gazetteer and geophysical event gazetteer. In order to compensate for a slightly reduced search precision relative to SQ and HN methods, Mirador uses several search optimizations to return results quickly, enabling iterative search strategies.