I have been involved in remote sensing for some years now during studies. I am wondering which combination of software and image processing modules would be most suitable for an entire process chain for professional image processing solutions and products. I am very curious about what other users think and perhaps it will even lead into an interesting discussion from experienced users.

What I mean in detail is the combination of:

* a database storing geographical data like shapefiles but especially huge amounts of satellite imagery with its corresponding metadata
* image processing modules automatically using appropriate data from the database useful for the chosen processing step (e.g. all satellite data with at least a certain spatial resolution for a given time span and geographic area to produce change detection maps)
* the results then should be integrated into the database and perhaps even be available for distribution via a web server

Unfortunately I do not have any advanced knowledge on databases for geographic data. Perhaps GeoNetwork/GeoServer with PostGIS would be an option?

For the image processing modules I thought of either implementing necessary algorithms in C++/GDAL or JAVA/Geotools. Also there would need to be some kind of module connecting to the database in order to fetch the needed data for processing and the creation of metadata for the processed images/products. My thoughts were that generally open source solutions would be best as such a system would be developed for a long run and being independent of commercial companies would be desired.