Augmenting comprehension of geological relationships by combining 3D laser scanning of meso- and macro-scale visualization techniques

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Geographical information systems (GIS) are widely used throughout the geosciences and engineering fields for investigating and visualizing complex datasets. ESRI Canada (the industry partner) is a worldwide leader in GIS that is continuously pushing the envelope for innovative and novel applications of its technology. Given the proliferation of laser scanning for acquiring digital datasets at various spatial scales, an opportunity arises for the field of geological engineering to integrate meso-scale objects (i.e., hand samples of rocks and cores) into the macro-scale (GIS, in this case ESRI's ArcGIS software) visualization environment. This is a challenging task as it requires the seamless integration of multi-scale data and associated attributes/parameters (i.e., rock surface roughness, luster, orientation) on a common platform. The results of this research work, will enable informed users to access all of the built-in capabilities of the ArcGIS software with geological tools that can unify data to reduce subjectivity and bias. In simple terms, our goal is akin to 'street view' for geological engineering. ESRI Canada's pursuit of immersive technology in various sectors will be facilitated through this research partnership resulting in a transformative toolbox for geoscience educators and researchers, which is a fast-growing customer-base for ESRI Canada. The specific sectors that will directly benefit as end-users/clients from this research collaboration are education (at all levels), natural resources (exploration and development, mining) and mapping.