Seminar by Pankaj Agarwal
Scalable Techniques for High-Resolution Elevation Analysis and Modeling
Pankaj Agarwal Duke University
Date: Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Time: 11:00 AM
Venue: CS101.Abstract:
With recent advances in terrain-mapping technologies such as Laser altimetry (LIDAR) and ground based laser scanning, millions of georeferenced points can be acquired within short periods of time. However, while acquiring and georeferencing the data has become extremely efficient, transforming the resulting massive amounts of heterogeneous data to useful information for different types of users and applications is lagging behind, in large part because of the scarcity of robust, efficient algorithms for terrain modeling and analysis that can handle massive data sets acquired by different technologies and that can rapidly detect and predict changes in the model as the new data is acquired.
This talk will review our on-going work on developing efficient algorithms for terrain modeling and analysis that work with massive data sets. It will focus on a memory-aware algorithm for computing contour maps and river networks of a terrain that is too large to fit in main memory.
About the speaker:
Dr. Agarwal earned his PhD in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He joined Duke University in 1989 where he is now the RJR Nabisco Professor of Computer Science. He was the Department Chair from 2004 to 2010. He also has an appointment in the Department of Mathematics. His research interests include geometric computing, spatial databases, ecological modeling, geographic information systems, sensor networks, computational molecular biology, and robotics. A Sloan Fellow, an ACM Fellow, and a National Young Investigator, he has authored four books and more than three hundred research articles. He serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals and on the advisory boards of several institutes and centers.