Multiresolution reference model for digital earth

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Our industrial partner, PYXIS innovation, Inc., is a developer of Digital Earth software that models the Earth and its data, called WorldView. Digital Earth is a framework that uses a digital representation of Earth as a reference model for the integration, management, visualization and processing of geospatial data. Such a framework facilitates efficient access to geo-integrated information, helping the public at large to learn and make decisions about the Earth and the issues affecting it. Geospatial data sets, however, tend to be large in volume and feature many different levels of fidelity. This has a significant impact on the Digital Earth framework, creating many challenges when we wish run queries on these data or stream them over the internet. Furthermore, these queries are only meaningful if their results are visualized in an understandable and engaging way through a natural set of interactions. With the support of an NSERC CRD, our research team will explore advanced computational and mathematical methods to efficiently process and stream massive amounts of geospatial data at different resolutions. Such methods are essential for improving the performance of Digital Earth software. Additionally, the research team will employ, customize, and/or modify recently proposed methods from interactive graphics and visualization in order to creatively visualize and interact with geospatial data, and will combine these techniques to solve several practical use cases. As a vast country with a substantial amount of natural resources, Canada stands to benefit greatly from improved geospatial data processing and visualization methods. PYXIS innovation's WorldView, in particular, will contribute to bringing Canada towards the forefront of graphics and GIS software development.