Multiresolution representation of hexagon grids for digital earth

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The project targets multiresolution representation of an hexagonal lattice within a Digital Earth framework. Vast amounts of geospatial data are being gathered in large volumes constantly, at different scales and from different sources, resulting in the need for a Digital Earth framework. Conventional mechanisms of this process are slow and do not harness all the benefits of existing dynamic spatial data capturing technologies. In addition, since the integration and analysis usually require special expertise and access to limited and exclusive resources, the on-demand sharing, distribution and analysis of such dynamic spatial information has been a challenge. Therefore, it is necessary to have an efficient data structure that also supports multiresolution. As a representation of the Earth, the Digital Earth framework must reduce possible distortions - such as areal and angular - that may arise between the planar data and the non-planar surface of the earth. The most common form of spatial data representation is graphical. Naturally, this leads us to consider graphical visualization as one of the important aspect of any Digital Earth framework. Since the current widespread graphical techniques are based on quadrilaterals and triangles, using an hexagonal lattice creates challenges in the graphical representation of features and the smooth transitions between resolutions. In this project, we focus on scientific issues and research problems in three subareas: Equal Area Projection, Indexing, and Data Structures and Visualization in the Digital Earth framework. Our research plan considers methods for improving current solutions and also investigating new approaches for resolving these problems.