Title: High-performance computing in GIS: techniques and applications

Authors: Natalija Stojanovic; Dragan Stojanovic

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš, Niš, Serbia ' Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš, Niš, Serbia

Abstract: In this paper, the application of High-Performance Computing (HPC) techniques in processing of geospatial data in Geographic Information System (GIS) is presented. We evaluate two parallel/distributed architectures and programming models: Message Passing Interface (MPI) over Network of Workstations (NoW) and Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) on Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in well-known problems in GIS: map matching and slope computations. A distributed application for map-matching computation over large-spatial data sets consisting of moving points and a road network was implemented using MPI and experimentally evaluated. A slope computations based on large-digital elevation model data was performed on GPU using CUDA which enable hundreds of threads to run concurrently employing multiprocessors on a graphics card. Experimental evaluations indicate improvement in performance and shows feasibility of using NoW and multiprocessors on a graphic card for HPC in GIS.

Keywords: high performance computing; NoW; network of workstations; MPI; mssage passing interface; GPU; CUDA; spatio-temporal data; map matching; GIS; geographic information systems; slope computations; geospatial data; elevation modelling; multiprocessors.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRIS.2013.055126

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, 2013 Vol.5 No.1, pp.42 - 49

Published online: 17 Jul 2013 *

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