Advances in 3D Spatial Information Systems. Applications in cultural heritage and virtual archeology

[EN] Large point clouds from radars and these-dimensional scanners are commonly used in Archaeology. However, in most cases these models cannot be properly integrated and used in software such as heritage management due to its large size. Therefore, some tools to make this management easier and optimize the processing are needed. In this work, we propone the integration between OpenVDB and GRASS in a C++ module to combine the widen functionality of GRASS GIS with the 3D models management efficiency of OpenVDB. Specifically, this application is used to combine the topographic information of a city with the 3D models of the most significant buildings. This application can be useful for both current cities as well as for virtual reconstruction of existing villages in the olden days and currently disappeared.[ES] En arqueología son frecuentes las grandes nubes de puntos obtenidas mediante herramientas como radares o escáneres tridimensionales. El excesivo tamaño de estos modelos ocasiona que, en la mayoría de los casos, no puedan ser integrados y manejados de forma adecuada y precisa con otros programas como, por ejemplo, los de gestión del patrimonio. Por ello, es necesario encontrar mecanismos que faciliten el manejo de los datos y optimicen su tratamiento. Por ello, en este trabajo se plantea la integración de OpenVDB y GRASS en un módulo implementado en C++, de forma que se combine la potencia y amplia funcionalidad del sistema de información geográfica GRASS con la eficiencia en el manejo de modelos 3D proporcionada por OpenVDB. En concreto, se propone la aplicación directa del mecanismo implementado para la combinación de la información topográfica de la ciudad con los modelos 3D de los edificios más significativos. Esta aplicación podría resultar de utilidad tanto para ciudades actuales como para la reconstrucción virtual de poblaciones existentes en la antigüedad y actualmente desaparecidas.Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente subvencionado por la Universidad de Jaén bajo el proyecto de investigación “Gestión del Subsuelo Urbano mediante SIG 3D” - Centro de Estudios Avanzados en TIC.Robles Ortega, MD.; Ortega Alvarado, L.; Feito Higueruela, FR. (2015). Avances en Sistemas de Información Espacial 3D. Aplicaciones en patrimonio y arqueología virtual. Virtual Archaeology Review. 6(12):77-91. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2015.4161SWORD7791612BECKER, S. et al. (2012): "Integrated management of heterogeneous geodata with a hybrid 3D geoinformation system". ISPRS Annals of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. I-2, pp. 87-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/isprsannals-I-2-87-2012CIGNONI, P. et al. (1997): "A Comparison of Mesh Simplification Algorithms". Computers & Graphics. Volumen 22, pp. 37-54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0097-8493(97)00082-4CLARKSON, C. et al. (2014): "Mapping stone: using GIS spatial modelling to predict lithic source zones". Journal of Archaeological Science. Volumen 46, pp. 324 - 333. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2014.03.035FABRIZIO, I.A. et al. (2012): "3D reality-based artefact models for the management of archaeological sites using 3D Gis: a framework starting from the case study of the Pompeii Archaeological area", Journal of Archaeological Science. Volumen 39, nº 5, pp. 1271-1287, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.12.034.FEITO, F.R., SEGURA, R.J. (2009): "Herramientas SIG 3D". I Congreso Internacional de Arqueología e Informática Gráfica, Patrimonio e Innovación.FISHER-GEWIRTZMAN, D. et al. (2013): "Voxel based volumetric visibility analysis of urban environments". Survey Review. Volumen 45, nº 333, pp. 451-461. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1752270613y.0000000059LIN, T. et al. (2008): Development of a virtual reality GIS using stereo vision, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. Volumen 63, nº 1, pp. 38-48.LÓPEZ-FRAILE, F.J. et al. (2014): "Aplicaciones SIG en la caracterización geoarqueológica del yacimiento paleolítico de Las Delicias (Madrid, España) y visualización en 3D de los resultados", en Virtual Archaeology Review. Volumen 5, nº 10, pp. 32-44.McCOOL, J.P. (2014): PRAGIS: a test case for a web-based archaeological GIS. Journal of Archaeological Science. Volumen 41, pp. 133-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.07.037MUSETH, K. (2014): Hierarchical Digital Differential Analyzer for Efficient Ray-Marching in OpenVDB. ACM SIGGRAPH Talk. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2614106.2614136NETELER, M. et al. (2008): Open source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach. 3rd Edition. Springer. ISBN-13: 978-0-387-35767-6. Book Series: The International Series in Engineering and Computer Science: Volume 773. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68574-8PÉREZ NAVARRO, A et al. (2011): Introducción a los sistemas de información geográfica y geotelemática. Editorial UOC.ROBLES-ORTEGA, M.D. et al. (2013): "Automatic Street Surface Modeling for Web-Based Urban Information Systems". Journal of Urban Planning and Development. Volumen 139, nº 1, pp. 40-48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000131SHEN, DY. et al. (2006): "3D simulation of soft geo-objects". International Journal of Geographical Information Science. Volumen 20, nº 3, pp. 261-271. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13658810500287149WANG, Y. (2006): 3D GIS Spatial Modeling for City Surface and Subsurface Integration. IGARSS'06.ZAMBELLI, P. et al. (2013): Pygrass: An Object Oriented Python Application Programming Interface (API) for Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) Geographic Information System (GIS). ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 2, pp. 201-219. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijgi201020

APRIL: Approximating Polygons as Raster Interval Lists

The spatial intersection join an important spatial query operation, due to its popularity and high complexity. The spatial join pipeline takes as input two collections of spatial objects (e.g., polygons). In the filter step, pairs of object MBRs that intersect are identified and passed to the refinement step for verification of the join predicate on the exact object geometries. The bottleneck of spatial join evaluation is in the refinement step. We introduce APRIL, a powerful intermediate step in the pipeline, which is based on raster interval approximations of object geometries. Our technique applies a sequence of interval joins on 'intervalized' object approximations to determine whether the objects intersect or not. Compared to previous work, APRIL approximations are simpler, occupy much less space, and achieve similar pruning effectiveness at a much higher speed. Besides intersection joins between polygons, APRIL can directly be applied and has high effectiveness for polygonal range queries, within joins, and polygon-linestring joins. By applying a lightweight compression technique, APRIL approximations may occupy even less space than object MBRs. Furthermore, APRIL can be customized to apply on partitioned data and on polygons of varying sizes, rasterized at different granularities. Our last contribution is a novel algorithm that computes the APRIL approximation of a polygon without having to rasterize it in full, which is orders of magnitude faster than the computation of other raster approximations. Experiments on real data demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of APRIL; compared to the state-of-the-art intermediate filter, APRIL occupies 2x-8x less space, is 3.5x-8.5x more time-efficient, and reduces the end-to-end join cost up to 3 times.Comment: 12 page

Miniaturized Transistors

What is the future of CMOS? Sustaining increased transistor densities along the path of Moore's Law has become increasingly challenging with limited power budgets, interconnect bandwidths, and fabrication capabilities. In the last decade alone, transistors have undergone significant design makeovers; from planar transistors of ten years ago, technological advancements have accelerated to today's FinFETs, which hardly resemble their bulky ancestors. FinFETs could potentially take us to the 5-nm node, but what comes after it? From gate-all-around devices to single electron transistors and two-dimensional semiconductors, a torrent of research is being carried out in order to design the next transistor generation, engineer the optimal materials, improve the fabrication technology, and properly model future devices. We invite insight from investigators and scientists in the field to showcase their work in this Special Issue with research papers, short communications, and review articles that focus on trends in micro- and nanotechnology from fundamental research to applications