This study proposes a virtual globe-based vector data model named the quaternary quadrangle vector tile model (QQVTM) in order to better manage, visualize, and analyze massive amounts of global multi-scale vector data. The model integrates the quaternary quadrangle mesh (a discrete global grid system) and global image, terrain, and vector data. A QQVTM-based organization method is presented to organize global multi-scale vector data, including linear and polygonal vector data. In addition, tile-based reconstruction algorithms are designed to search and stitch the vector fragments scattered in tiles to reconstruct and store the entire vector geometries to support vector query and 3D analysis of global datasets. These organized vector data are in turn visualized and queried using a geometry-based approach. Our experimental results demonstrate that the QQVTM can satisfy the requirements for global vector data organization, visualization, and querying. Moreover, the QQVTM performs better than unorganized 2D vectors regarding rendering efficiency and better than the latitude–longitude-based approach regarding data redundancy.

Coverage capacity analysis of satellites constellation is the basis of satellite system design and performance evaluation, which is essential in the application of satellite technology. A characteristic area based method for continuous coverage analysis is proposed in this paper. The trajectory characteristics of the Walker constellation are first analyzed. The Earth's surface is partitioned into a group of characteristic areas, and the characteristic distance theory is defined and proposed accordingly. On this basis, the formulations of the characteristic point of each characteristic area and the corresponding characteristic distance with all different situations can be analytically obtained. Additionally, sufficient and necessary conditions for continuous coverage are given accordingly. The complex continuous coverage problem can be converted to the analysis of the relations between the critical geocentric angle of the satellite coverage range and the characteristic distance. Computational results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method and reveal the feasibility in instructing the constellation design.

With the rapid development of the economy, urgent needs for 3-D Geographical Information System (GIS) have sprung up in many application fields. The precise expression of three-dimensional topological relations is the foundation of spatial analysis, topological query, and spatial reasoning in three-dimensional space. In this paper, we subdivide the topological part “boundary” into face, edge, and vertex and propose a 25-intersection model (25IM) to represent topological relations between two simple spatial objects (point, line, region, and body) in 3-D space. An object in the 25IM has five topological parts: vertex, edge, face, interior, and exterior. The classification of topological relations is simplified by merging contain/inside and cover/coveredby. The 25IM describes ten groups of topological relations: body/body, body/region, body/line, body/point, region/region, region/line, region/point, line/line, line/point, and point/point. The 25IM is demonstrated to be more expressive than the 9IM and the DE-9IM, especially in distinguishing the detail situations when one object meets/covers another object (e.g., two bodies meet/cover at vertex, edge, or face).

The scene-rendering mechanism based on binocular vision is one of the key techniques for the VR globe to achieve immersion-type visualization of global 3D scenes. However, this special rendering mechanism also requires that the 3D scene is continuously drawn twice within one frame, which significantly affects the rendering efficiency of VR globes. Therefore, we propose a binocular parallel rendering method. This method first improves the current rendering process of VR globes by assigning the rendering tasks for the left and right camera of VR to be processed on different CPU cores, thereby achieving parallel rendering of binocular scenes. Second, due to the problem of inconsistent resolution of binocular scenes caused by different viewpoints for the left and right cameras, we propose a resolution synchronize algorithm. this algorithm conducts real-time synchronization on the resolution of scene in the rendering process and thus avoids the problem of erroneous binocular stereo matching. Finally, we validate the effectiveness of the method in this paper through experiments. The results of experiments indicate that while the method in this paper can ensure the consistency of binocular scene resolution, it can decrease the frame time of VR globes by approximately 27% on average.

Polygonal vector data are important for representing countries, lakes, residential settlements, and other polygonal features. The proper representation of polygonal vector data is the basis of efficient rendering and picking and quick access and display of the analysis results based on polygons (e.g., 3D overlaying and surface area measurement in mountainous areas) in a virtual globe. However, polygonal vector data are displayed using texture-based or boundary-based approaches in most existing virtual globes. The texture-based approach cannot easily support interactive operations (e.g., picking) and spatial analysis (e.g., adjacency analysis and spatial measurement). The boundary-based approach treats the holes as independent features; however, it is difficult to recognize which boundaries constitute a polygon. Further research is needed on how to better organize the polygons to support efficient rendering, picking, and analysis in a virtual globe. In this article, we propose two methods to drape interior filled 2D polygons onto a multi-resolution 3D terrain. Both proposed methods combine polygon clipping and polygon triangulation. The difference between the two methods is in the way holes are eliminated. Method 1 recursively subdivides a terrain triangle until the child-triangles contain no holes; every resulting clipped polygon, which is then triangulated, contains no holes. Method 2 directly clips a polygon against a terrain triangle and creates bridge edges to transform the resulting polygons with holes to degenerate polygons that are further triangulated. The experimental results demonstrate that both proposed methods can efficiently process polygons with holes resulting in appropriate numbers of triangles. The processed interior-filled polygons remain close to the terrain surface in a virtual globe. Both proposed methods support real-time rendering of polygonal vector data in a virtual globe.