The Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory has developed a data access method and associated software environment for sharing parametric geographical data over a wide-area network. Data are distributed in the form of 'views', virtual flat tables built from the contents of the database. The heart of this system is a architecture-independent protocol for communicating both the schema and contents of views over the network. Scientists run software applications on their workstations that make requests to publicly accessible 'view-server' software running on the computer hosting the database. View-servers hide the details of the database management system from the scientists, and provide a mechanism by which diverse data stored in many different data managements systems can be accessed in a uniform manner. An X- Windows based geographical database browser, several data base managers and associated view-servers, and a view-server for SQL- based relational database managers are made available (by FTP file transfer) to non-profit educational institutions and US Government agencies. //
