A Web Service-Oriented Geoprocessing System for Supporting Intelligent Land Cover Change Detection

Remotely sensed imagery-based change detection is an effective approach for identifying land cover change information. A large number of change detection algorithms have been developed that satisfy different requirements. However, most change detection algorithms have been developed using desktop-based software in offline environments; thus, it is increasingly difficult for common end-users, who have limited remote sensing experience and geographic information system (GIS) skills, to perform appropriate change detection tasks. To address this challenge, this paper proposes an online geoprocessing system for supporting intelligent land cover change detection (OGS-LCCD). This system leverages web service encapsulation technology and an automatic service composition approach to dynamically generate a change detection service chain. First, a service encapsulation strategy is proposed with an execution body encapsulation and service semantics description. Then, a constraint rule-based service composition method is proposed to chain several web services into a flexible change detection workflow. Finally, the design and implementation of the OGS-LCCD are elaborated. A step-by-step walk-through example for a web-based change detection task is presented using this system. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the prototype system.