Martin Christen | University of Applied Sciences and Arts FHNW, Switzerland (original) (raw)

Papers by Martin Christen

Geospatial data is data containing a spatial component – describing objects with a reference to t... more Geospatial data is data containing a spatial component – describing objects with a reference to the planet's surface. This data usually consists of a spatial component, of various attributes, and sometimes of a time reference (where, what, and when). Efficient processing and visualization of small to large-scale spatial data is a challenging task. This talk describes how to process and visualize geospatial vector and raster data using Python and the Jupyter Notebook. To process the data a high performance computer with 4 GPUS (NVidia Tesla V100), 192 GB RAM, 44 CPU Cores is used to run JupyterHub. There are numerous modules available which help using geospatial data in using low- and high-level interfaces, which are shown in this presentation. In addition, it is shown how to use deep learning for raster analysis using the high performance GPUs and several deep learning frameworks.

ISPRS Annals of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2016

Providing worldwide high resolution data for virtual globes consists of compute and storage inten... more Providing worldwide high resolution data for virtual globes consists of compute and storage intense tasks for processing data. Furthermore, rendering complex 3D-Geodata, such as 3D-City models with an extremely high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive framerates is still a very challenging task, especially on mobile devices. This paper presents an approach for processing, caching and serving massive geospatial data in a cloud-based environment for large scale, out-of-core, highly scalable 3D scene rendering on a web based virtual globe. Cloud computing is used for processing large amounts of geospatial data and also for providing 2D and 3D map data to a large amount of (mobile) web clients. In this paper the approach for processing, rendering and caching very large datasets in the currently developed virtual globe “OpenWebGlobe 2” is shown, which displays 3D-Geodata on nearly every device.

ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2012

This paper presents the design and development of a hardware and software framework supporting al... more This paper presents the design and development of a hardware and software framework supporting all phases of typical monitoring and mapping missions with mini and micro UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). The developed solution combines state-of-the art collaborative virtual globe technologies with advanced geospatial imaging techniques and wireless data link technologies supporting the combined and highly reliable transmission of digital video, high-resolution still imagery and mission control data over extended operational ranges. The framework enables the planning, simulation, control and real-time monitoring of UAS missions in application areas such as monitoring of forest fires, agronomical research, border patrol or pipeline inspection. The geospatial components of the project are based on the Virtual Globe Technology i3D OpenWebGlobe of the Institute of Geomatics Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). i3D OpenWebGlobe is a high-performance 3D geovisualisation engine supporting the web-based streaming of very large amounts of terrain and POI data.

ISPRS Annals of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2015

Rendering large city models with high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive ... more Rendering large city models with high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive frame rates is a rather difficult to impossible task as it highly depends on the client hardware, which is often insufficient, even if out-of-core rendering techniques and level of detail approaches are used. Rendering complex city models on mobile devices is even more challenging. An approach of rendering and caching very large city models in the cloud using ray-tracing based image provisioning is introduced. This allows rendering large scenes efficiently, including on mobile devices. With this approach, it is possible to render cities with nearly unlimited number of polygons and textures.

International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling, 2012

In this paper, the authors present the OpenWebGlobe project (http://www.openwebglobe.org). The au... more In this paper, the authors present the OpenWebGlobe project (http://www.openwebglobe.org). The authors also discuss the OpenWebGlobe SDK. OpenWebGlobe SDK is an open source framework for creating massive 3D virtual globe environments and interactively exploiting them in web browsers using HTML5 and WebGL, allowing for the creation of large scale virtual 3D globes with detailed contents and their interactive visualization directly within a broad spectrum of Web browsers.

Making Games with Python: Mission Impossible? EuroPython 2017 - Panel - 2017-07-11 - Arengo. Rimi... more Making Games with Python: Mission Impossible? EuroPython 2017 - Panel - 2017-07-11 - Arengo. Rimini, Italy A discussion about making full-featured, commercial games in python, both 2D and 3D. Looking at state of the art approaches to using python in gaming, we will compare the alternatives: pygame (2D API), OpenGL (via pygame/pySDL2), Unreal Engine 4 and the Godot Engine (with further comparison to Unity 3D game engine). We will also look at other benefits of using python in the gaming context, such as integration with 3D modelling software, scripting the asset pipeline and GIS data integration. Finally, can (and should) python move beyond being the language of plugins and scripts, and become the main language for creating game development projects

Rendering complex 3D-Geodata using pyRT [EuroPython 2017 - Talk - 2017-07-12 - Arengo] [Rimini, I... more Rendering complex 3D-Geodata using pyRT [EuroPython 2017 - Talk - 2017-07-12 - Arengo] [Rimini, Italy] PyRT (pronounced "pirate") is a rather new open source project creating a ray tracer in pure Python and some optional CPU/GPU acceleration using bindings. Ray tracing is a technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light. PyRT was created to render large 3D City models. In this talk, the possibilities and experiences of ray tracing in Python using pyRT are shown. pyRT also runs in the Jupyter Notebook. Rendering complex 3D-Geodata, such as 3D-City models with an extremely high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive framerates is still a very challenging task, especially on mobile devices. This talk presents an approach for processing, caching and serving massive geospatial data in a cloud-based environment for large scale, out-of-core, highly scalable 3D scene rendering in a web-based solution. PyRT is used for rendering large amounts of ...

In this paper I present a way to implement Whitted style ("classic") recursive ray tracing on cur... more In this paper I present a way to implement Whitted style ("classic") recursive ray tracing on current generation consumer level GPUs using the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) and the Direct3D High Level Shading Language (HLSL). Ray tracing is implemented using a simplified, abstracted stream programming model for the GPU, written in C++. A ray tracer on current graphics hardware reaches the speed of a good CPU implementation already. Combined with classic triangle based real time rendering, the GPU based ray tracing algorithm could already be used today for certain special effects in computer games.

Existierende Virtuelle Globen basieren auf gigantischen Geodatenmengen und erlauben die Integrati... more Existierende Virtuelle Globen basieren auf gigantischen Geodatenmengen und erlauben die Integration eigener Inhalte, wie beispielsweise von 3D-Gebäudemodellen. Die Erweiterbarkeit dieser proprietären Software um eigene Geobasisdaten (z.B. verbesserte, hoch detaillierte Höhenmodelle) oder um eigene Funktionalität ist jedoch sehr eingeschränkt. Der quelloffene OpenWebGlobe (www.openwebglobe.org) ermöglicht die Realisierung massgeschneiderter, leistungsfähiger Virtueller Globen mit lokalen bis globalen Geodatensätzen und eigener Funktionalität. Der OpenWebGlobe Viewer basiert auf den neuen Web-Technologien HTML5 und WebGL ist daher in den meisten modernen Web-Browsern ohne vorgängige Installation eines Plugins lauffähig. Mithilfe von OpenWebGlobe wird eine Echtzeit 3D-Repräsentation von OpenStreetMap Daten auf einem Virtuellen Globus realisiert. Dabei wird direkt mit OSM Daten in der Postgres Datenbank gearbeitet. Die Resultate werden über 3D-Geometrie Tiles in einem JSON Format zurück...

This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for examp... more This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for example georeferenced video imagery acquired from micro UAVs, into collaborative 3D geoinformation technologies. It identifies some of the key issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of such geospatial collaboration frameworks and describes the main features of a prototype system which is currently being implemented as part of the ViMo (Virtual Monitoring) research project.

This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for examp... more This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for example georeferenced video imagery acquired from micro UAVs, into collaborative 3D geoinformation technologies. It identifies some of the key issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of such geospatial collaboration frameworks and describes the main features of a prototype system

This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for examp... more This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for example georeferenced video imagery acquired from micro UAVs, into collaborative 3D geoinformation technologies. It identifies some of the key issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of such geospatial collaboration frameworks and describes the main features of a prototype system which is currently being implemented as part of the ViMo (Virtual Monitoring) research project.

Dieser Beitrag beschreibt Möglichkeiten und Anforderungen, welche sich aus einer Integration mobi... more Dieser Beitrag beschreibt Möglichkeiten und Anforderungen, welche sich aus einer Integration mobiler Geosensoren (z.B. Videosensoren auf Mikrodrohnen) in kollaborative 3D-Geoinformationsumgebungen ergeben. Er identifiziert wichtige Designaspekte, die bei der Realisierung eines derartigen Geo-Kollaborationsframeworks berücksichtigt werden müssen und beschreibt Kernpunkte der Architektur eines Prototypsystems, das als Bestandteil des Forschungsprojekts ViMo (Virtual Monitoring) entwickelt wird. 1 Einleitung 1.1 Status und Motivation Virtuelle Globen-Bei der Entwicklung heutiger virtueller Globen wie Google Earth oder NASA World Wind standen weder dynamische noch Echtzeit-Inhalte, wie viele bewegliche Objekte oder mobile Geosensoren, im Vordergrund noch wurden sie als räumliche Kollaborationsumgebungen konzipiert. Die Unterstützung mobiler Geosensoren und kollaborativer Funktionalität in hochaufgelösten virtuellen Globen eröffnet jedoch ein ganzes Spektrum an neuen Anwendungsbereichen, wie Sicherheit, Verkehrsüberwachung, Feuerüberwachung und-bekämpfung oder Grenzüberwachung. Geo Sensor Web-Schon heute existiert eine Vielzahl von georeferenzierten Sensoren, welche Informationen über die unterschiedlichsten Phänomene wie Wetter, Pegelstände oder Verkehrsaufkommen überwachen. Diese Sensoren wurden aber bisher in aller Regel über proprietäre Schnittstellen, Kommunikationskanäle und Protokolle angesprochen. All dies behinderte eine breite Nutzung solcher Geosensordaten. Demgegenüber steht eine Reihe von jüngeren Entwicklungen, welche diese Situation nachhaltig verbessern und damit Geosensoren zu einer zentralen Informationsquelle machen dürften-insbesondere in Kombination mit virtuellen Globen. Zu diesen Entwicklungen gehören: einerseits die Etablierung standardisierter Internet-Protokolle sowohl für drahtbasierte als auch drahtlose Kommunikationskanäle, andererseits Dienst basierte Architekturen und Standards insbesondere im Bereich Geo Sensor Web. Von besonderem Interesse ist dabei die OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Initiative des Open Geospatial Consortiums (Botts et al., 2006). Mikrodrohnen als neue Geosensorplattform-Für die Realisierung zukünftiger Monitoringund Kollaborationsanwendungen in virtuellen Globen sind neben den oben aufgeführten Standards zur Kommunikation mit Geosensoren, die Entwicklung neuer Geosensoren undplattformen ebenso wichtig. Fortschritte in der Miniaturisierung von Komponenten zur Positions-und Orientierungsbestimmung sowie bei Leichtbau-Materialen und bei den Batteriekapazitäten haben zur Entwicklung einer neuen Generation leichtgewichtiger, autonom einsetzbarer fliegender Sensorplattformen geführt. Abb. 2 zeigt das System 'microdrones md4-200', eine der ersten operationellen Mikrodrohnen, welche spezifisch für 1 Stephan Nebiker, Martin Christen, Hannes Eugster, Kevin Flückiger, Christian Stierli: (stephan.nebiker, martin.christen, hannes.eugster, kevin.flueckiger, christian.stierli)@fhnw.ch,

Generating and visualizing rich and interactive (geospatial) 3D contents over the World Wide Web ... more Generating and visualizing rich and interactive (geospatial) 3D contents over the World Wide Web (WWW) using state of the art web technologies such as WebGL as a native component of modern web browsers is a continuously growing approach to modern geospatial data exploitation. In this paper we are introducing OpenWebGlobe and 3DCityTV as two showcase applications to demonstrate the capabilities for exploiting massive 3d geospatial environments with current web technologies without the extensive use of third-party technologies such as browser plugins or extensions. Real time rendering of massive 3d virtual worlds using WebGL as well as the parallel processing and storage within common cloud computing services of large scale datasets will be discussed. Using an imaged-based approach to 3d modeling on vast stereo-vision based mobile mapping data will be introduced using an entirely web based 3d exploitation solution.

In the past years, numerous open source projects have started to display 3D globes and 3D data on... more In the past years, numerous open source projects have started to display 3D globes and 3D data on the web. Standardizing web services, data format and representation models is, therefore, a very hot topic. There are in particular ongoing efforts on the OGC side as well as on the W3C side. The OGC has released a draft candidate for a 3D web service W3DS, the ISO X3D standard proposes an XML-based file format for representing 3D computer graphics and the W3C is considering adding X3D rendering into HTML5. Other projects implement their own web services and formats. On the implementation side, Geoserver supports W3DS and X3D, the X3DOM library prototypes a possible implementation of X3D HTML5 integration and last but not least, browsers with WebGL support are fully able to handle the representation of 3D data on the client side. The talk is going to detail the mentioned elements, show demonstrations of existing implementations and try to suggest a possible path into the 3D web for the ...

Geospatial data is data containing a spatial component – describing objects with a reference to t... more Geospatial data is data containing a spatial component – describing objects with a reference to the planet's surface. This data usually consists of a spatial component, of various attributes, and sometimes of a time reference (where, what, and when). Efficient processing and visualization of small to large-scale spatial data is a challenging task. This talk describes how to process and visualize geospatial vector and raster data using Python and the Jupyter Notebook. To process the data a high performance computer with 4 GPUS (NVidia Tesla V100), 192 GB RAM, 44 CPU Cores is used to run JupyterHub. There are numerous modules available which help using geospatial data in using low- and high-level interfaces, which are shown in this presentation. In addition, it is shown how to use deep learning for raster analysis using the high performance GPUs and several deep learning frameworks.

ISPRS Annals of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2016

Providing worldwide high resolution data for virtual globes consists of compute and storage inten... more Providing worldwide high resolution data for virtual globes consists of compute and storage intense tasks for processing data. Furthermore, rendering complex 3D-Geodata, such as 3D-City models with an extremely high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive framerates is still a very challenging task, especially on mobile devices. This paper presents an approach for processing, caching and serving massive geospatial data in a cloud-based environment for large scale, out-of-core, highly scalable 3D scene rendering on a web based virtual globe. Cloud computing is used for processing large amounts of geospatial data and also for providing 2D and 3D map data to a large amount of (mobile) web clients. In this paper the approach for processing, rendering and caching very large datasets in the currently developed virtual globe “OpenWebGlobe 2” is shown, which displays 3D-Geodata on nearly every device.

ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2012

This paper presents the design and development of a hardware and software framework supporting al... more This paper presents the design and development of a hardware and software framework supporting all phases of typical monitoring and mapping missions with mini and micro UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). The developed solution combines state-of-the art collaborative virtual globe technologies with advanced geospatial imaging techniques and wireless data link technologies supporting the combined and highly reliable transmission of digital video, high-resolution still imagery and mission control data over extended operational ranges. The framework enables the planning, simulation, control and real-time monitoring of UAS missions in application areas such as monitoring of forest fires, agronomical research, border patrol or pipeline inspection. The geospatial components of the project are based on the Virtual Globe Technology i3D OpenWebGlobe of the Institute of Geomatics Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). i3D OpenWebGlobe is a high-performance 3D geovisualisation engine supporting the web-based streaming of very large amounts of terrain and POI data.

ISPRS Annals of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2015

Rendering large city models with high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive ... more Rendering large city models with high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive frame rates is a rather difficult to impossible task as it highly depends on the client hardware, which is often insufficient, even if out-of-core rendering techniques and level of detail approaches are used. Rendering complex city models on mobile devices is even more challenging. An approach of rendering and caching very large city models in the cloud using ray-tracing based image provisioning is introduced. This allows rendering large scenes efficiently, including on mobile devices. With this approach, it is possible to render cities with nearly unlimited number of polygons and textures.

International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling, 2012

In this paper, the authors present the OpenWebGlobe project (http://www.openwebglobe.org). The au... more In this paper, the authors present the OpenWebGlobe project (http://www.openwebglobe.org). The authors also discuss the OpenWebGlobe SDK. OpenWebGlobe SDK is an open source framework for creating massive 3D virtual globe environments and interactively exploiting them in web browsers using HTML5 and WebGL, allowing for the creation of large scale virtual 3D globes with detailed contents and their interactive visualization directly within a broad spectrum of Web browsers.

Making Games with Python: Mission Impossible? EuroPython 2017 - Panel - 2017-07-11 - Arengo. Rimi... more Making Games with Python: Mission Impossible? EuroPython 2017 - Panel - 2017-07-11 - Arengo. Rimini, Italy A discussion about making full-featured, commercial games in python, both 2D and 3D. Looking at state of the art approaches to using python in gaming, we will compare the alternatives: pygame (2D API), OpenGL (via pygame/pySDL2), Unreal Engine 4 and the Godot Engine (with further comparison to Unity 3D game engine). We will also look at other benefits of using python in the gaming context, such as integration with 3D modelling software, scripting the asset pipeline and GIS data integration. Finally, can (and should) python move beyond being the language of plugins and scripts, and become the main language for creating game development projects

Rendering complex 3D-Geodata using pyRT [EuroPython 2017 - Talk - 2017-07-12 - Arengo] [Rimini, I... more Rendering complex 3D-Geodata using pyRT [EuroPython 2017 - Talk - 2017-07-12 - Arengo] [Rimini, Italy] PyRT (pronounced "pirate") is a rather new open source project creating a ray tracer in pure Python and some optional CPU/GPU acceleration using bindings. Ray tracing is a technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light. PyRT was created to render large 3D City models. In this talk, the possibilities and experiences of ray tracing in Python using pyRT are shown. pyRT also runs in the Jupyter Notebook. Rendering complex 3D-Geodata, such as 3D-City models with an extremely high polygon count and a vast amount of textures at interactive framerates is still a very challenging task, especially on mobile devices. This talk presents an approach for processing, caching and serving massive geospatial data in a cloud-based environment for large scale, out-of-core, highly scalable 3D scene rendering in a web-based solution. PyRT is used for rendering large amounts of ...

In this paper I present a way to implement Whitted style ("classic") recursive ray tracing on cur... more In this paper I present a way to implement Whitted style ("classic") recursive ray tracing on current generation consumer level GPUs using the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) and the Direct3D High Level Shading Language (HLSL). Ray tracing is implemented using a simplified, abstracted stream programming model for the GPU, written in C++. A ray tracer on current graphics hardware reaches the speed of a good CPU implementation already. Combined with classic triangle based real time rendering, the GPU based ray tracing algorithm could already be used today for certain special effects in computer games.

Existierende Virtuelle Globen basieren auf gigantischen Geodatenmengen und erlauben die Integrati... more Existierende Virtuelle Globen basieren auf gigantischen Geodatenmengen und erlauben die Integration eigener Inhalte, wie beispielsweise von 3D-Gebäudemodellen. Die Erweiterbarkeit dieser proprietären Software um eigene Geobasisdaten (z.B. verbesserte, hoch detaillierte Höhenmodelle) oder um eigene Funktionalität ist jedoch sehr eingeschränkt. Der quelloffene OpenWebGlobe (www.openwebglobe.org) ermöglicht die Realisierung massgeschneiderter, leistungsfähiger Virtueller Globen mit lokalen bis globalen Geodatensätzen und eigener Funktionalität. Der OpenWebGlobe Viewer basiert auf den neuen Web-Technologien HTML5 und WebGL ist daher in den meisten modernen Web-Browsern ohne vorgängige Installation eines Plugins lauffähig. Mithilfe von OpenWebGlobe wird eine Echtzeit 3D-Repräsentation von OpenStreetMap Daten auf einem Virtuellen Globus realisiert. Dabei wird direkt mit OSM Daten in der Postgres Datenbank gearbeitet. Die Resultate werden über 3D-Geometrie Tiles in einem JSON Format zurück...

This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for examp... more This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for example georeferenced video imagery acquired from micro UAVs, into collaborative 3D geoinformation technologies. It identifies some of the key issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of such geospatial collaboration frameworks and describes the main features of a prototype system which is currently being implemented as part of the ViMo (Virtual Monitoring) research project.

This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for examp... more This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for example georeferenced video imagery acquired from micro UAVs, into collaborative 3D geoinformation technologies. It identifies some of the key issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of such geospatial collaboration frameworks and describes the main features of a prototype system

This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for examp... more This paper describes the large potential offered by integrating mobile geo sensor data, for example georeferenced video imagery acquired from micro UAVs, into collaborative 3D geoinformation technologies. It identifies some of the key issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of such geospatial collaboration frameworks and describes the main features of a prototype system which is currently being implemented as part of the ViMo (Virtual Monitoring) research project.

Dieser Beitrag beschreibt Möglichkeiten und Anforderungen, welche sich aus einer Integration mobi... more Dieser Beitrag beschreibt Möglichkeiten und Anforderungen, welche sich aus einer Integration mobiler Geosensoren (z.B. Videosensoren auf Mikrodrohnen) in kollaborative 3D-Geoinformationsumgebungen ergeben. Er identifiziert wichtige Designaspekte, die bei der Realisierung eines derartigen Geo-Kollaborationsframeworks berücksichtigt werden müssen und beschreibt Kernpunkte der Architektur eines Prototypsystems, das als Bestandteil des Forschungsprojekts ViMo (Virtual Monitoring) entwickelt wird. 1 Einleitung 1.1 Status und Motivation Virtuelle Globen-Bei der Entwicklung heutiger virtueller Globen wie Google Earth oder NASA World Wind standen weder dynamische noch Echtzeit-Inhalte, wie viele bewegliche Objekte oder mobile Geosensoren, im Vordergrund noch wurden sie als räumliche Kollaborationsumgebungen konzipiert. Die Unterstützung mobiler Geosensoren und kollaborativer Funktionalität in hochaufgelösten virtuellen Globen eröffnet jedoch ein ganzes Spektrum an neuen Anwendungsbereichen, wie Sicherheit, Verkehrsüberwachung, Feuerüberwachung und-bekämpfung oder Grenzüberwachung. Geo Sensor Web-Schon heute existiert eine Vielzahl von georeferenzierten Sensoren, welche Informationen über die unterschiedlichsten Phänomene wie Wetter, Pegelstände oder Verkehrsaufkommen überwachen. Diese Sensoren wurden aber bisher in aller Regel über proprietäre Schnittstellen, Kommunikationskanäle und Protokolle angesprochen. All dies behinderte eine breite Nutzung solcher Geosensordaten. Demgegenüber steht eine Reihe von jüngeren Entwicklungen, welche diese Situation nachhaltig verbessern und damit Geosensoren zu einer zentralen Informationsquelle machen dürften-insbesondere in Kombination mit virtuellen Globen. Zu diesen Entwicklungen gehören: einerseits die Etablierung standardisierter Internet-Protokolle sowohl für drahtbasierte als auch drahtlose Kommunikationskanäle, andererseits Dienst basierte Architekturen und Standards insbesondere im Bereich Geo Sensor Web. Von besonderem Interesse ist dabei die OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Initiative des Open Geospatial Consortiums (Botts et al., 2006). Mikrodrohnen als neue Geosensorplattform-Für die Realisierung zukünftiger Monitoringund Kollaborationsanwendungen in virtuellen Globen sind neben den oben aufgeführten Standards zur Kommunikation mit Geosensoren, die Entwicklung neuer Geosensoren undplattformen ebenso wichtig. Fortschritte in der Miniaturisierung von Komponenten zur Positions-und Orientierungsbestimmung sowie bei Leichtbau-Materialen und bei den Batteriekapazitäten haben zur Entwicklung einer neuen Generation leichtgewichtiger, autonom einsetzbarer fliegender Sensorplattformen geführt. Abb. 2 zeigt das System 'microdrones md4-200', eine der ersten operationellen Mikrodrohnen, welche spezifisch für 1 Stephan Nebiker, Martin Christen, Hannes Eugster, Kevin Flückiger, Christian Stierli: (stephan.nebiker, martin.christen, hannes.eugster, kevin.flueckiger, christian.stierli)@fhnw.ch,

Generating and visualizing rich and interactive (geospatial) 3D contents over the World Wide Web ... more Generating and visualizing rich and interactive (geospatial) 3D contents over the World Wide Web (WWW) using state of the art web technologies such as WebGL as a native component of modern web browsers is a continuously growing approach to modern geospatial data exploitation. In this paper we are introducing OpenWebGlobe and 3DCityTV as two showcase applications to demonstrate the capabilities for exploiting massive 3d geospatial environments with current web technologies without the extensive use of third-party technologies such as browser plugins or extensions. Real time rendering of massive 3d virtual worlds using WebGL as well as the parallel processing and storage within common cloud computing services of large scale datasets will be discussed. Using an imaged-based approach to 3d modeling on vast stereo-vision based mobile mapping data will be introduced using an entirely web based 3d exploitation solution.

In the past years, numerous open source projects have started to display 3D globes and 3D data on... more In the past years, numerous open source projects have started to display 3D globes and 3D data on the web. Standardizing web services, data format and representation models is, therefore, a very hot topic. There are in particular ongoing efforts on the OGC side as well as on the W3C side. The OGC has released a draft candidate for a 3D web service W3DS, the ISO X3D standard proposes an XML-based file format for representing 3D computer graphics and the W3C is considering adding X3D rendering into HTML5. Other projects implement their own web services and formats. On the implementation side, Geoserver supports W3DS and X3D, the X3DOM library prototypes a possible implementation of X3D HTML5 integration and last but not least, browsers with WebGL support are fully able to handle the representation of 3D data on the client side. The talk is going to detail the mentioned elements, show demonstrations of existing implementations and try to suggest a possible path into the 3D web for the ...