From point cloud to grid DEM: A scalable approach

26Citations
Citations of this article
84Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.
Get full text

Abstract

Given a set S of points in ℝ3 sampled from an elevation function H : ℝ2 → ℝ, we present a scalable algorithm for constructing a grid digital elevation model (DEM). Our algorithm consists of three stages: First, we construct a quad tree on S to partition the point set into a set of non-overlapping segments. Next, for each segment q, we compute the set of points in q and all segments neighboring q. Finally, we interpolate each segment independently using points within the segment and its neighboring segments. Data sets acquired by LIDAR and other modern mapping technologies consist of hundreds of millions of points and are too large to fit in main memory. When processing such massive data sets, the transfer of data between disk and main memory (also called I/O), rather than the CPU time, becomes the performance bottleneck. We therefore present an I/O-efficient algorithm for constructing a grid DEM. Our experiments show that the algorithm scales to data sets much larger than the size of main memory, while existing algorithms do not scale. For example, using a machine with 1GB RAM, we were able to construct a grid DEM containing 1.3 billion cells (occupying 1.2GB) from a LIDAR data set of over 390 million points (occupying 20GB) in about 53 hours. Neither ArcGIS nor GRASS, two popular GIS products, were able to process this data set. © 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Agarwal, P. K., Arge, L., & Danner, A. (2006). From point cloud to grid DEM: A scalable approach. In Progress in Spatial Data Handling - 12th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling, SDH 2006 (pp. 771–788). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-35589-8_48

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free