Commercial GIS Extension for Visualization of Large Unstructured Geospatial Data

The proposed innovation is new technology to enable the visualization of large unstructured geospatial datasets, such as LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) data, within a commercial desktop Geographic Information System (GIS). The architecture first converts the raw LIDAR datasets into the newly approved LAS LIDAR data standard. The system then creates efficient spatial indexing mechanisms to easily visualize high-fidelity models interactively within a 3D GIS environment. The efficient data model is also used to support high-performance raster and TIN creation. All three data models (raw point cloud, raster, and TIN) are integrated with the native capabilities of ArcGIS for visualization, query, filtering, and analysis. The technology also provides extensibility through APIs to enable third-party developers to implement algorithms for image analysis and feature extraction. The proposed architecture also supports the use of high performance computing (HPC) platforms for resource intensive processing that may not be appropriate for a single desktop system.