Dataset Organization
Science On a Sphere® comes with over 550 datasets preloaded on the system. All of the NOAA-provided SOS datasets are put into one of the seven main categories: Air, Extras, Land, People, Snow and Ice, Space, and Water.
The “Extras” category contains assorted datasets that don’t fit into the other categories. Within each category there are many subcategories. Datasets can be put into multiple categories and subcategories. A full list of all of the datasets sorted into their categories is available in the Data Catalog.
This organization is used on the SOS website catalog, in the SOS Remote app, and in the SOS Stream GUI library. The datasets are stored on the SOS computer in directories that use an old naming scheme, so it’s similar, but not exactly the same. For example, the Air datasets are stored in a directory called atmosphere and the Space datasets are in a directory called astronomy. These old names were maintained for consistency for older sites.
Datasets on Disk
Permalink to Datasets on DiskAll the datasets are stored on the SOS computer in /shared/sos/media. The directories that you will find in here are:
- astronomy
- contains the Space datasets
- atmosphere
- contains the Air datasets
- database
- contains a file used by the SOS Remote app
- extras
- contains narrated movies that are now dispersed, plus Extras datasets
- land
- contains the Land datasets
- models
- contains models that are now dispersed in Air, Ocean, and Snow and Ice
- oceans
- contains the Water datasets
- overlays
- contains the overlay datasets
- playlists
- contains files used for downloading datasets
Within these category directories you will find a separate folder for each of the datasets. In some cases, related datasets are grouped together into subfolder. For example, in the land directory, there is a blue_marble directory that contains four subdirectories for the four Blue Marble datasets.
All datasets are stored in just one location, regardless of how many categories they are in on the website and SOS Remote App. For example, the Japan Earthquake, Tsunami Wave Propagation, and Wave Heights Combo dataset can be found in the Land and Water categories, but is stored only in the oceans directory. You can find a dataset’s location by click the FTP link on the description page on the website, by pressing the Details button in the SOS Stream GUI when the dataset is loaded, or by pressing the Info button on the SOS Remote App when the dataset is loaded.
All datasets created by the site have to go in the site-custom directory in /shared/sos/media. In the site-custom directory, we recommend that you create a folder for each individual dataset that you create, but we leave that up to each site. If you use the Visual Playlist Editor, it requires you to save each dataset into a folder of its own.