Augmented virtual environment: fusion of real-time video and 3D models in the digital earth system

An Augmented virtual environment(AVE)is concerned with the fusion of real-time video with 3D models or scenes so as to augment the virtual environment.In this paper,a new approach to establish an AVE with a wide field of view is proposed,including real-time video projection,multiple video texture fusion and 3D visualization of moving objects.A new diagonally weighted algorithm is proposed to smooth the apparent gaps within the overlapping area between the two adjacent videos.A visualization method for the location and trajectory of a moving virtual object is proposed to display the moving object and its trajectory in the 3D virtual environment.The experimental results showed that the proposed set of algorithms are able to fuse multiple real-time videos with 3D models efficiently,and the experiment runs a 3D scene containing two million triangles and six real-time videos at around 55 frames per second on a laptop with 1GB of graphics card memory.In addition,a realistic AVE with a wide field of view was created based on the Digital Earth Science Platform by fusing three videos with a complex indoor virtual scene,visualizing a moving object and drawing its trajectory in the real time.

SolidEarth： a new Digital Earth system for the modeling and visualization of the whole Earth space

Although many of the first-generation Digital Earth systems have proven to be quite useful for the modeling and visualization of geospatial objects relevant to the Earth＇s surface and near-surface, they were not designed for the purpose of modeling and application in geological or atmospheric space. There is a pressing need for a new Digital Earth system that can process geospatial information with full dimensionality. In this paper, we present a new Digital Earth system, termed SolidEarth, as an alternative virtual globe for the modeling and visualization of the whole Earth space including its surface, interior, and exterior space. SolidEarth consists of four functional components： modeling in geographical space, modeling in geological space, modeling in atmo- spheric space, and, integrated visualization and analysis. SolidEarth has a comprehensive treatment to the third spatial dimension and a series of sophisticated 3D spatial analysis functions. Therefore, it is well-suited to the volumetric representation and visual analysis of the inner/ outer spheres in Earth space. SolidEarth can be used in a number of fields such as geoscience research and education, the construction of Digital Earth applications, and other professional practices of Earth science.

An address regional tessellation method for spatial subdivision and geocoding in digital earth system

With the increased use of locational information,spatial location referencing and coding methods have become much more important to the mining of both geographical and nongeographical data in digital earth system.Unfortunately,current methods of geocoding,based on reverse lookup of coordinates for a given address,have proven too lossy with respect to administrative and socioeconomic data.This paper proposes a spatial subdivision and geocoding model based on spatial address regional tessellation(SART).Given a hierarchical address object definition,and based on the‘region of influence’characteristics of an address,SART creates multiresolution spatial subdivisions by irregular and continuous address regions.This model reflects most of the geographical features and many of the social and economic implications for a given address.It also better reflects the way people understand addresses and spatial locations.We also propose an appropriate method of geocoding for standard addresses(SART-GC).The codes generated by this method can record address footprints,hierarchical relationships,and spatial scales in a single data structure.Finally,by applying our methods to the Shibei District of Qingdao,we demonstrate the suitability of SART-GC for multi-scale spatial information representation in digital earth systems.

Cyber-applications as gateway to data-rich Digital Earth systems

The underlying vision of the Digital Earth(DE)calls for applications that can embed vast quantities of geo-referenced data and allow users to study and analyse of our planet.Since the declaration of this vision in the late 90s,a significant number of DE data-sets have been created by the industry,governments,non-governmental organisations and individuals.An overwhelming majority of the successful applications that use DE data-sets has its end-user applications running on the desktop.While these applications are great tools,they remain inaccessible to the community as a whole.In this paper,we present a framework for the development of cyber-applications.We define an abstract architecture for cyber-applications based on the model-view-controller paradigm,which allows the dynamic inclusion of functional and data components into its execution engine at run-time.We define the operational characteristics of cyber-applica-tions.We also specify the interface of pluggable components to the architecture.Finally,we demonstrate the appropriateness of the abstract architecture by means of a case study.

Digital Element Earth

The resources and environmental problems are the two most fundamental issues facing all nations in the world. Everything in and on the Earth - minerals, animals and plants -is made from one, or generally some combination of, chemical elements, which are scientifically listed in the periodic table. Thus it is important to understand the present abundance and spatial distribution of all the elements across the Earth＇s surface. Such kinds of data can only be obtained at present and for the foreseeable future by on-earth geochemical mapping at all scales. The 30-year efforts made by Chinese geochemists in carrying out multi-element, multi-media, multi-scale geochemical mapping projects to delineate 39-76 element distribution at home and abroad culminated in a successful case of high- quality geochemical data acquirement. The new idea for a four-level plan for global geochemical mapping was advanced to obtain global data in the foreseeable future and the collection of updated geochemical information. Such information needs to be easily accessible not only by the science community, but also by industry, agriculture, governments, and even individuals, by all who would make an effort to promote sustainable riving on our planet. The concept of a Digital Element Earth （DEE） fulfills the aims.

Review on status of groundwater database and application prospect in deep-time digital earth plan

Groundwater is an important water resource.The total amount of active groundwater in a hydrological cycle is about 3.5 times that of the total amount of surface water.The information in the deep groundwater records the material exchange and dynamics in the earth’s evolution,which is an important aspect of the Deep-Time Digital Earth(DDE)plan.In recent years,scientists have discussed the distribution of transboundary aquifers and the environmental significance of groundwater resources through groundwater databases established by international organizations,such as the Global Groundwater Information System and the chronicles consortium,and national institutes,such as national geological surveys.The application of the groundwater database in the DDE plan,however,has been limited by the management,interactivity,and monitoring method of the groundwater data.The ability to further integrate data that are private and scattered across research institutions and individuals,while establishing an open,unified,and shared groundwater data platform,is essential to enhance our understanding of groundwater,ranging from shallow to deep water,which is a goal of the DDE plan.In this study,we introduced the current situation of groundwater database operations in domestic and international research and provided frontier research with groundwater big data.Considering the related objectives of the DDE plan and the limitations of existing groundwater databases,we proposed an improvement plan and new prospects for applying groundwater databases in the research of the deep earth.

“Digital earth” in support of an online oceanic educational public service and popularization

According to the initial vision of ＂digital earth＂ （DE）, the public should constitute a significant proportion of its users. However, to date, most of the studies and applications have focused on science, the private sec- tor and government. A DE-supported online oceanic educational public service and popularization system, iOcean, is studied. First, the vision for the public＇s engagement with ＂digital ocean＂ is described： an analysis is presented from four aspects, i.e., the space dimension, the time dimension, the state dimension and its relationship with human beings. Second, the technical framework of iOcean is discussed, including data updating and model computing, the data, the function, and the application layers. Third, two key technolo- gies are studied in detail that will enable the construction of iOcean. More than half a million public viewers have used the current version＇s website. Practical demonstrations show that iOcean can bring virtual oceans to web browsers and desktops and construct a bridge between government departments and the general public.

Digital earth, Virtual Reality and urban seismic disaster simulation

US Vice President Al Gore's vision of Digital Earth applies us with prospects for brand-new ways of solving problems the earth is facing such as seismic disaster. ms paper first briefly introduces the concept of Digital Earth. Then in the context of Digital Earth. the Origin, concept and application of Virtual Reality technology are reviewed. After that we present in detail our preliminary case study--CVR-USD (Computer Virtual Reality for Urban Seismic Disaster Simulation) System which aims to simulate and manage seismic disaster through integrating RS, GIS and VR technologies. For this system, we've built USD subsystem, developed SMVR software to implement CVR. and also developed a Spatial Dare Analysis Package to handle spatial data related to earthquake disaster.

A comprehensive and up-to-date web-based interactive 3D emergency response and visualization system using Cesium Digital Earth: taking landslide disaster as an example

As with the fast advances in the technologies of big Earth data and information communication,Web-based 3D GIS system has come a long way from a few years ago.These advances reflect in many aspects of 3D GIS such as higher real-time performance,enhanced interactivity,more realistic 3D visualization effect and improved user interface.This paper aims to present a comprehensive and upto-date 3D Web GIS for Emergency Response using the current vue.js web application framework and the well-known Cesium APl,taking landslide disaster as an example.Building upon recent advances in WebGL technology,we developed a suite of enhanced 3D spatial analysis functions,including interactive route planning,instant text/image/video messaging being incorporated into both 3D WebGL page and mobile GIS applications,and progressive 3D construction and AR visualization using LiDAR and camera over local emergency network or internet.Moreover,professional functions such as landslide susceptibility mapping,landslide monitoring,spatial temporal contingency plan management,landslide information management,personnel and equipment management,and communication are all implemented and integrated in the 3D GIS system.Most of the functions of the system are implemented using open-source projects,which is beneficial to the development of the 3D GIS research community.

The Main Content,Technical Support and Enforcement Strategy of Digital Agriculture

This paper deals with the content,purpose and significance of digital agriculture,and gives a brief introduction to digital earth,digital China and digital agriculture abroad.The main content of digital agriculture includes the construction of database,Metadata standard,monitoring system,forecasting and decision_making system,information_releasing system.The main technical supports of digital agriculture are 3S technology,Metadata management technology,fast_handling technology of remote sensing,the technology of computer wide_band network and virtual reality,intelligent agriculture machinery and field real_time information collecting technology.The advantages of implementing digital agriculture in China and the problems worthy of attention are pointed out as well.

Discussion research of digital construction of mine

Analyzed and compared with some digitizeed mine build state first.Secondly analyzed opportunity and challenge that the Chinese mine faces,and pointed out certainty and necessity of building digitization of mine,Summarized the present task that charac- teristic,DM,MGIS of the digital mine develop and construct and employ finally,and carry on the summary to structure and function of the component mine integrated information system.

Progress of Earth Observation in China

China is expanding and sharing its capacity for Earth observation by developing sensors,platforms,and launch capabilities in tandem with growing lunar and deep space exploration.China is considering the Moon as a viable Earth observation platform to provide high-quality,planetary-scale data.The platform would produce consistent spatiotemporal data because of its long operational life and the geological stability of the Moon.China is also quickly improving its capabilities in processing and transforming Earth observation data into useful and practical information.Programs such as the Big Earth Data Science Engineering Program(CASEarth)provide opportunities to integrate data and develop“Big Earth Data”platforms to add value to data through analysis and integration.Such programs can offer products and services independently and in collaboration with international partners for data-driven decision support and policy development.With the rapid digital transformation of societies,and consequently increasing demand for big data and associated products,Digital Earth and the Digital Belt and Road Program(DBAR)allow Chinese experts to collaborate with international partners to integrate valuable Earth observation data in regional and global sustainable development.

Digital earth:yesterday,today,and tomorrow

The concept of Digital Earth(DE)was formalized by Al Gore in 1998.At that time the technologies needed for its implementation were in an embryonic stage and the concept was quite visionary.Since then digital technologies have progressed significantly and their speed and pervasiveness have generated and are still causing the digital transformation of our society.This creates new opportunities and challenges for the realization of DE.‘What is DE today?’,‘What could DE be in the future?’,and‘What is needed to make DE a reality?’.To answer these questions it is necessary to examine DE considering all the technological,scientific,social,and economic aspects,but also bearing in mind the principles that inspired its formulation.By understanding the lessons learned from the past,it becomes possible to identify the remaining scientific and technological challenges,and the actions needed to achieve the ultimate goal of a‘Digital Earth for all’.This article reviews the evolution of the DE vision and its multiple definitions,illustrates what has been achieved so far,explains the impact of digital transformation,illustrates the new vision,and concludes with possible future scenarios and recommended actions to facilitate full DE implementation.

Think global,cube local:an Earth Observation Data Cube’s contribution to the Digital Earth vision

The technological landscape for managing big Earth observation(EO)data ranges from global solutions on large cloud infrastructures with web-based access to self-hosted implementations.EO data cubes are a leading technology for facilitating big EO data analysis and can be deployed on different spatial scales:local,national,regional,or global.Several EO data cubes with a geographic focus(“local EO data cubes”)have been implemented.However,their alignment with the Digital Earth(DE)vision and the benefits and trade-offs in creating and maintaining them ought to be further examined.We investigate local EO data cubes from five perspectives(science,business and industry,government and policy,education,communities and citizens)and illustrate four examples covering three continents at different geographic scales(Swiss Data Cube,semantic EO data cube for Austria,DE Africa,Virginia Data Cube).A local EO data cube can benefit many stakeholders and players but requires several technical developments.These developments include enabling local EO data cubes based on public,global,and cloud-native EO data streaming and interoperability between local EO data cubes.We argue that blurring the dichotomy between global and local aligns with the DE vision to access the world’s knowledge and explore information about the planet.

Digital Earth’s Nervous System for crisis events:real-time Sensor Web Enablement of Volunteered Geographic Information

Digital Earth(DE)is a powerful metaphor for the organisation and access to digital information through a multi-scale three-dimensional representation of the globe.Recent progress gave a concrete body to this vision.However,this body is not yet self-aware:further integration of the temporal and voluntary dimension is needed to better portray the event-based nature of our world.We thus aim to extend DE vision with a Nervous System in order to provide decision makers with improved alerting mechanisms.Practical applications are foreseen for crisis management,where up-to-date situational awareness is needed.While it is traditionally built through trusted sources,citizens can play a complementary role by providing geo-referenced information known as Volunteered Geographic Information(VGI).Although workflows have been implemented to create,validate and distribute VGI datasets for various thematic domains,its exploitation in real time and its integration into existing concepts of DE,such as spatial data infrastructures,still needs to be further addressed.In this paper we suggest to bridge this gap through Sensor Web Enablement for VGI,where VGI sensing becomes a sense of the DE’s Nervous System.We discuss this approach and its applicability in the context of a forest fire scenario.

GIScience research challenges for realizing discrete global grid systems as a Digital Earth

Increasing data resources are available for documenting and detecting changes in environmental,ecological,and socioeconomic processes.Currently,data are distributed across a wide variety of sources(e.g.data silos)and published in a variety of formats,scales,and semantic representations.A key issue,therefore,in building systems that can realize a vision of earth system monitoring remains data integration.Discrete global grid systems(DGGSs)have emerged as a key technology that can provide a common multi-resolution spatial fabric in support of Digital Earth monitoring.However,DGGSs remain in their infancy with many technical,conceptual,and operational challenges.With renewed interest in DGGS brought on by a recently proposed standard,the demands of big data,and growing needs for monitoring environmental changes across a variety of scales,we seek to highlight current challenges that we see as central to moving the field(s)and technologies of DGGS forward.For each of the identified challenges,we illustrate the issue and provide a potential solution using a reference DGGS implementation.Through articulation of these challenges,we hope to identify a clear research agenda,expand the DGGS research footprint,and provide some ideas for moving forward towards a scaleable Digital Earth vision.Addressing such challenges helps the GIScience research community to achieve the real benefits of DGGS and provides DGGS an opportunity to play a role in the next generation of GIS.

A digital earth prototype system:DEPS/CAS

Digital Earth is an information expression of the real Earth,and is a new way of understanding the Earth in the twenty-first century.This paper introduces a Digital Earth Prototype System(DEPS)developed at the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS)and supported by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.Discussions are made to the theoretical model and technical framework of the Digital Earth,and its related key technologies on spatial information processing,spatial data warehouse technology,virtual reality technology,high-performance and parallel computing.The DEPS consists of seven sub-systems including the spatial data,metadata,model database,Grid geoscience computing,spatial information database,maps service and virtual reality.Meanwhile,we developed a series of application systems such as the environment monitoring for the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing,natural disasters evaluation,digital city,digital archeology,Asia regional aerosol and climate change.The DEPS/CAS displayed the application ability and potential of the Digital Earth in three levels:the global,national and regional.

The framework of a geospatial semantic web-based spatial decision support system for Digital Earth

While significant progress has been made to implement the Digital Earth vision,current implementation only makes it easy to integrate and share spatial data from distributed sources and has limited capabilities to integrate data and models for simulating social and physical processes.To achieve effectiveness of decisionmaking using Digital Earth for understanding the Earth and its systems,new infrastructures that provide capabilities of computational simulation are needed.This paper proposed a framework of geospatial semantic web-based interoperable spatial decision support systems(SDSSs)to expand capabilities of the currently implemented infrastructure of Digital Earth.Main technologies applied in the framework such as heterogeneous ontology integration,ontology-based catalog service,and web service composition were introduced.We proposed a partitionrefinement algorithm for ontology matching and integration,and an algorithm for web service discovery and composition.The proposed interoperable SDSS enables decision-makers to reuse and integrate geospatial data and geoprocessing resources from heterogeneous sources across the Internet.Based on the proposed framework,a prototype to assist in protective boundary delimitation for Lunan Stone Forest conservation was implemented to demonstrate how ontology-based web services and the services-oriented architecture can contribute to the development of interoperable SDSSs in support of Digital Earth for decision-making.

Gap analysis in decision support systems for real-estate in the era of the digital earth

Searching for a property is inherently a multicriteria spatial decision.The decision is primarily based on three high-level criteria composed of household needs,building facilities,and location characteristics.Location choice is driven by diverse characteristics;including but not limited to environmental factors,access,services,and the socioeconomic status of a neighbourhood.This article aims to identify the gap between theory and practice in presenting information on location choice by using a gap analysis methodology through the development of a sevenfactor classification tool and an assessment of international property websites.Despite the availability of digital earth data,the results suggest that real-estate websites are poor at providing sufficient location information to support efficient spatial decision making.Based on a case study in Dublin,Ireland,we find that although neighbourhood digital earth data may be readily available to support decision making,the gap persists.We hypothesise that the reason is two-fold.Firstly,there is a technical challenge to transform location data into usable information.Secondly,the market may not wish to provide location information which can be perceived as negative.We conclude this article with a discussion of critical issues necessary for designing a spatial decision support system for real-estate decision making.

Digital Earth: decadal experiences and some thoughts

The understanding that mankind should reasonably exploit and utilize earth resources and effectively protect the planet on which we live,is now widely accepted.However,effective actions can only be conducted if we better understand and visualize the earth.To meet this need,digital earth science and technology have been put forward and developed.This paper introduces the evolution and development process of digital earth,and presents an overview by reviewing and analyzing the 1999 and 2009 Beijing Declaration on Digital Earth,the scientific and commercial digital earth systems,global and regional digital earth research,and some existing platforms of digital earth science.It also presents some thoughts about digital earth’s future development.