OpenWebGlobe SDK - An Open Source High-Performance Virtual Globe SDK for Open Maps

Martin Christen, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland

Details about the talk:
Virtual globes, sometimes also referred to as 3D geobrowsers, consist of virtual 3D environments capable of streaming and interactively displaying large amounts of geo-referenced spatial contents over the internet (Nebiker et al., 2010). At the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland such a virtual globe technology is being developed. The i3D globe has been in development for many years and has been successfully implemented in several research and industry projects. The new version of the i3D virtual globe is called i3D OpenWebGlobe and will be released as open source in July 2011.

Our virtual globe can have several data categories like image data, elevation data, points of interest, vector data, and 3D objects. Before streaming over the internet, this data must be pre-processed. Such pre-processing usually comprises a transformation from a local to a global reference system, creation of pyramid layers or levels of detail (LOD), tiling of the data, and optionally compression and encryption. Because data sets are usually large, containing several terabytes, advanced out-of-core rendering mechanisms with a level of detail approach are used for visualization (Christen & Nebiker, 2011).

OpenWebGlobe SDK is an open source SDK (Software Development Kit) consisting of more than 300 functions for virtual globe rendering. With this SDK it is possible to create new and innovative applications containing a virtual globe. The SDK should not depend on a computer language. Therefore, it is currently possible to either use C, C++, C#, Visual Basic, or Python. Support for more languages can be added if needed, using appropriate language bindings. The OpenWebGlobe SDK doesn't include any geospatial data; therefore it relies on free or open image, map, and elevation data. With the advent of OpenStreetMap being available on a global scale, this data provides an ideal basis for OpenWebGlobe based applications. We process OpenStreetMap data on a high-performance computing cluster. By adding analytical hillshading to the openstreetmap tiles, interactive virtual globe rendering of amazing quality can be obtained.

Details about the speaker:
Martin Christen graduated with a computer science degree. Today he is a senior research associate at the Institute of Geomatics Engineering of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern (FHNW) Switzerland. He is the lead developer of the virtual globe technology which is used as a research platform. Previously he was software developer in the fields of 3D geoinformation and in 3D computer game development. His main research interests are GPU-Programming, Parallel Computing, Terrain-Rendering, and 3D Graphics Engine Architecture.

Theme: tech