Oral Comprehensive Exam Details
Discrete Global Grid Systems: A New Class of Geospatial Data Structures
| Author: | Kevin Sahr |
|---|---|
| Date: | November 19, 2004 |
| Time: | 10:00 |
| Location: | 220 Deschutes |
| Committee: | John Conery (Chair) Andrzej Proskurowski Denis White |
Abstract
Geospatial data structures are key components of some of todays most challenging computer science applications. Problems in global climate modeling, environmental monitoring and assessment, transportation planning, and military modeling and simulation all involve data referenced to the earths surface. Advances in collection-related technologies (such as satellites) have facilitated the availability of global spatial data sets of increasingly fine granularity, while increasingly inexpensive technologies (such as embedded GPS receivers) allow for the real-time update of the location of mobile computing devices and have led to the new field of location-based computing. A number of researchers have noted limitations in applying traditional geospatial computing techniques to high-resolution global datasets. A new class of geospatial data structures, called Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS), have been proposed. DGGS are based on highly regular, multi-resolution partitions of polyhedral approximations of the earths surface. In this talk we will give an overview of traditional approaches to geospatial data structures and then survey the various DGGS architectures that have been proposed.