GeoFusion, Inc.

1. GeoFusion, Inc. Digital Earth Visualization Paul Hansen hansen@geofusion.com Chuck Stein stein@geofusion.com www.geofusion.com

2. GeoFusion, Inc. • Santa Cruz based software technology company • Based on Paul Hansen’s work with digital earth rendering • Goals: • Create core technology for the GeoWeb • Put an interactive digital earth on everyone’s desktop • License software – GeoMatrix® Toolkit (SDK) • Custom application development • Rendering services

3. Accelerating Digital Earth Development • Early choice: application vs. toolkit • Digital EarthApplication Programmer’s Interface (API) allows for a multitude of applications and uses • Promote data sharing with non-proprietary projection and data format • Provide customers the ability to use the Earth as an interface to desired functionality • Platform independence

4. GeoMatrix®Digital Earth System • The GeoMatrix Toolkit • An Application Programmer’s Interface (API) for building digital Earth applications • Uses a unique projection and global tessellation system that facilitates tile generation, texture mapping, & rendering • Tile generation and data “format” that supports: • Multi-resolution representation of source data • Fast look-up database speeds demand paging of data tiles • Valid/invalid (transparent) pixel determination • Compression and format options

5. GeoMatrix®Digital Earth System • Renders vast amounts of data • Fast inclusion of data at run-time • Real-time scene generation • Continuous level-of-detail while zooming • Platform independent, OpenGL based graphics • Low cost hardware, highly optimized software • Small libraries (DLLs: 50-200k) • API allows for rapid development of applications

6. Requirements • 128 Mb RAM • 3D accelerated graphics • OpenGL

7. Native Data Types Multi-resolution, tiled representation of: • Imagery • Terrain • Vector • Annotation

8. GeoMatrix® Toolkit Features • Fully interactive, high performance 3D digital Earth platform • Visualization of image, terrain, vector, & annotation data • Continuous level-of-detail while zooming • Manages a vast number of datasets simultaneously; attach and detach at will • Platform independent C++, object oriented API

9. GeoMatrix® Toolkit Features (cont.) • Draw your own content into the GeoFusion rendered world: • Text, lines, 3D models, etc. • Demand paging of local or remote data tiles • Blend between image data layers • Animate events over time • Output arbitrary resolution images or frames for movies

10. Tile Generation 3D Navigation Rendering(visualization) Tile I/O(data servers) GeoMatrix Toolkit Modules

11. GeoMatrix Applications scene 1 scene 2 Multiple scenes/viewports globe 1 globe 2 Coincident, concentric or offset dataset 1 dataset 2 dataset 3 Image, Terrain, Vector, Annotation

12. 1km NASA Modus 1km pseudo-color bathymetry & terrain

13. 6 inch aerial imagery draped over LIDAR elevation data. 70 cm aerial imagery

14. CIA map blended with satellite imagery over terrain.

15. Yosemite, California: 8m black & white DOQ imagery on 10m DEM

16. 1km global bathymetry and terrain

17. Example application of satellite models drawn on top of GeoFusion rendered Earth.

18. ESRI’s ArcGlobe • Available in ArcGIS 3D Analyst extension • Tremendous increase in performance • Interactive, supports layers, 3D models, etc. • GIS is moving from flatland to the “globe” • Allows viewing most data in ESRI geodatabase • Prepares data on-the-fly, then caches tiles

19. GeoMatrix core concepts 1. Tiled, multi-resolution data packaging. Tiles have a consistent size with a definite upper-bound, allowing them to be easily moved around and assembled into a view. 2. Unique tiling system (GeoMatrix) for the Earth globe. Hybrid system--combination of geographic projection and square polar projection. Smooth transitions across domain boundaries. Efficient treatment of polar singularities.

20. GeoMatrix core concepts (cont.) 3. Fast recursive subdivision and fast, aggressive culling of "geometry“ (surface parts) outside the viewing window. 4. Fast and fine-grained level-of-detail (LOD) calculation allows the minimal collection of needed tiles to be accessed. 5. Introduction of higher-resolution data before it is easily visible. "New“ data appears "between" previously seen data rather than replacing it, and, for terrain data, gradually morphs to its full extent.

21. GeoMatrix core concepts (cont.) • 6. Fast data coordination and rendering allow a realistic Earth to be a 3D canvas for other kinds of data visualization. The GeoMatrix provides a spherical coordinate space infrastructure. • 7. Creation of a set of software modules that make this technology available to a wide variety of applications developers through a set of innovative programming interfaces (APIs). The GeoMatrix Toolkit.

22. Globe Faces

23. 0ºE QUADRANT 2 15ºW 30ºW QUADRANT 3 QUADRANT 1 45ºW 80ºN 60ºW 70ºN 60ºN 75ºW QUADRANT 0 50ºN 90ºW Polar Projection

24. Globe Mapping top view full globe

25. Polar/Equatorial Congruency

26. Mapping Function 90oN 0.0 P P 45oN 1.0 180oW 135oW 90oW -1.0 0.0 1.0 PX = PX * PY PY = PY

27. Coordinate Spaces • “Face” coordinates—normalized Cartesian coordinates per-face. • “Tile” coordinates—quad-tree indexing: F,L,R,C • globe face index • recursion level number • row index • column index

28. Coded Vertexes • Peano coding for vertex locations. Except: • no interleaved bits • LSB is dedicated “1.0” bit • location is within a particular tile • Fast conversion between face coordinates. • Combine vertex coding with tile coordinates.