**Note** from Bead: Incident Cataloging · [canonical source](https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/c38c1239-bfd3-44dd-8d97-1a0aa39ac8da/2026-06-10/notes/bead-mission-catalog-and-cataloging.md) · session 2026-06-10 · discussion: Talk: Incident Cataloging
> Stephen, 2026-06-10: *"let's think about the mission of this bead.. the catalog and the cataloging. let's use taos-engine as a test."* This bead's handle is now **`main-context`**; `#taos-engine` is a child / test bed under it. This note states the mission the rest of the bead serves.
## The mission, in one line Build **the catalog** (a view/controller-agnostic way to hold any layer) and **the cataloging** (an interface to connect those layers), and prove both on a real instance — the **Sandy fire** — using **`#taos-engine`** as the test bed. It is the noun/verb pair from [cataloging-as-a-verb](../2026-06-08/notes/cataloging-as-a-verb.md), made concrete: - **The catalog (noun).** The standing structure: the view/controller-agnostic format ([event-catalog-format-design](../2026-06-08/notes/event-catalog-format-design.md)) that holds heterogeneous **layers** as typed entries with pose / time / media — MISB FMV clips, alertLive posed photos, fire-progression rasters, perimeters, imagery — all uniformly. The residue. - **The cataloging (verb).** The live act: an interface where you **connect to layers** — compose, sequence, subscribe — to assemble something like the Sandy fire progression. "Connect to layers" is the **connect** verb applied to layers as the connectable resources; the place where people go to make connections.
## Layers are the connectable unit A **layer** here = a space-and-time-anchored data source you can connect into a scene (toggle, compose, sequence, subscribe). The MISB viewer's `LayersPanel` (a checkbox tree) is the primitive form: toggle on/off. The mission promotes layers to **first-class connectable resources** — you draw a reference to a layer (T1: connecting = subscribing), place it in the shared space+time frame, and compose several into one view.
## The test instance: the Sandy fire (CA-VNC-SANDY, 2026) Sandy is the right test because the *same incident* exists as **two cross-modal layers**, both time-series: 1. **MISB FMV** — multiple N42Z aircraft clips over time (in `apps/viewer-3d/incidents.json`; this is what `#taos-engine` is porting). Posed video, UTC µs telemetry. 2. **Fire progression** — the simtable viz at https://www.simtable.com/apps/fireProgression/output2026/2026_CAVNC_042326_sandy.html : OpenLayers + a WebGL fire overlay (`fireOverlayGL.js`, `worldFileFire.js`) + perimeters, animated over time. Overhead georeferenced fire-spread raster. **Connecting these two layers of one incident over one timeline is the test.** It exercises exactly the two claims at once: - the **catalog's** agnosticism — can one format hold an FMV clip *and* a fire-spread raster as peer layers? - the **cataloging's** connect — can the interface compose them (aircraft projectors + fire overlay) in one scene over one shared space+time frame? If a posed video frame from an N42Z clip and the fire-progression raster land on the same terrain at the same UTC moment, the catalog held them and the cataloging connected them. That is the first demo.
## `#taos-engine` as the test bed The 3D port is where we prove it. Step-0 (done 2026-06-10) puts one MISB projector on terrain at the Palisades N57B pose; the projected footprint computed by the engine (4897×2668 m) matched the telemetry's `target_width` (4896.77 m), confirming the `fovY=VFOV`, `aspect=tan(HFOV/2)/tan(VFOV/2)` intrinsics mapping numerically. The mission extends that to: load the Sandy **layers** from the catalog, connect them in the TaosEngine scene over a shared timeline (FMV projectors + the fire-progression overlay), and let Stephen connect/compose them through the cataloging interface. taos-engine is not the product; it is the test that the catalog + cataloging actually work on a real, multi-layer incident.
## Open threads - **L1 — what is a layer, in the format?** An `Entry`? a grouping subtree? a `{source, adapter, frame}` triple? The MISB clip is an entry; the fire progression is a whole time-animated dataset. Likely: a layer = a typed source + adapter that resolves to entries/overlays in the shared frame. - **L2 — timeline reconciliation.** FMV is UTC µs; fire progression is perimeter timestamps (coarser). The shared timeline must place both. (The Time tagged-union from event-catalog-format-design: instant/range/stream.) - **L3 — overlay vs projector vs entity.** FMV = projector onto terrain; fire progression = a georeferenced raster overlay on terrain; perimeters = vector lines. Three render kinds the cataloging interface must connect uniformly. - **L4 — connect = subscribe.** Connecting a live layer should subscribe to it (observe), not snapshot — the active-field half of cataloging.
## Provenance Stephen 2026-06-10 (two prompts: the Sandy fire-progression URL, and the mission framing). Continues [cataloging-as-a-verb](../2026-06-08/notes/cataloging-as-a-verb.md) and [event-catalog-format-design](../2026-06-08/notes/event-catalog-format-design.md). Test bed: https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/c66cbd1d-453c-41f8-8440-179502f25de4/about.md
## References (bead cross-links) - Bead: Taos Engine · [canonical](https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/c66cbd1d-453c-41f8-8440-179502f25de4/)