Implementation of a parallel high-performance visualization technique in GRASS GIS

Authors:
Alexandre Sorokine
Affiliations:
Geographic Information Science & Technology Group, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008 MS-6017, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6017, USA
Venue:
Computers & Geosciences
Year:
2007

Citing 5
Cited 4

A Sorting Classification of Parallel Rendering

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
Exploratory cartographic visualization: advancing the agenda

Computers & Geosciences - Special issue on exploratory cartographic visualization
Going virtual with geographic information and scientific visualization

Computers & Geosciences - Special issue on exploratory cartographic visualization
Open Source GIS: A Grass GIS Approach

Open Source GIS: A Grass GIS Approach
Visualization and geographic information system integration: what are the needs and the requirements, if any?

VIS '94 Proceedings of the conference on Visualization '94

Comparison of distribution strategies in uncertainty-aware catchment delineation

Geoinformatica
Robust rectification of aerial photographs in an open source environment

Computers & Geosciences
GRASS GIS: A multi-purpose open source GIS

Environmental Modelling & Software
Implementation and performance optimization of a parallel contour line generation algorithm

Computers & Geosciences

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

This paper describes an extension for GRASS geographic information systems (GIS) that enables users to perform geographic visualization tasks on tiled high-resolution displays powered by the clusters of commodity personal computers. Parallel visualization systems are becoming more common in scientific computing due to the decreasing hardware costs and availability of the open source software to support such architecture. High-resolution displays allow scientists to visualize very large data sets with minimal loss of details. Such systems have a big promise especially in the field of GIS because users can naturally combine several geographic scales on a single display. This paper discusses architecture, implementation, and operation of pd-GRASS-a GRASS GIS extension for high-performance parallel visualization on tiled displays. pd-GRASS is specifically well suited for very large geographic data sets, such as light detecting and ranging data or high-resolution nation-wide geographic databases. This paper also briefly touches on computational efficiency, performance, and potential applications for such systems.