Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Use of Principal Components for Scaling Up Topographic Models to Map Soil Redistribution and Soil Organic Carbon
Published on: October 16, 2018
Planetary-scale terrain composition
Robert Kooima1, Jason Leigh, Andrew Johnson
1Department of Computer Science, Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7053, USA. rlk@evl.uic.edu
Abstract:
Many interrelated planetary height map and surface image map data sets exist, and more data are collected each day. Broad communities of scientists require tools to compose these data interactively and explore them via real-time visualization. While related, these data sets are often unregistered with one another, having different projection, resolution, format, and type. We present a GPU-centric approach to the real-time composition and display of unregistered-but-related planetary-scale data. This approach employs a GPGPU process to tessellate spherical height fields. It uses a render-to-vertex-buffer technique to operate upon polygonal surface meshes in image space, allowing geometry processes to be expressed in terms of image processing. With height and surface map data processing unified in this fashion, a number of powerful composition operations may be uniformly applied to both. Examples include adaptation to nonuniform sampling due to projection, seamless blending of data of disparate resolution or transformation regardless of boundary, and the smooth interpolation of levels of detail in both geometry and imagery. Issues of scalability and precision are addressed, giving out-of-core access to giga-pixel data sources, and correct rendering at scales approaching one meter.
More Related Videos
10:30Soil Lysimeter Excavation for Coupled Hydrological, Geochemical, and Microbiological Investigations
Published on: September 11, 2016
08:09Measuring and Mapping Patterns of Soil Erosion and Deposition Related to Soil Carbonate Concentrations Under Agricultural Management
Published on: September 12, 2017
Related Concept Videos
The Soil Ecosystem
Plotting of Topographic Maps
Methods of Obtaining Topography
Topographic Surveying and Contours
Interpretations of Partial Derivatives
Profile Leveling and Cross Sections