Geodata Overlay Viewer (GOVu): An innovative way to handle high-resolution imagery

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Geodata Overlay Viewer (GOVu): An innovative way to handle high-resolution imagery

Satya Priya & Puneet Sharma
RMSI Private Limited, A - 7 Sector 16, Noida 201 301, India
Tel: +91 120 251 1102, 251 2101, Fax: +91 120 251 1109, 251 0963

Abstract
When working with different types of data such as satellite imagery, aerial photographs, scanned topographical maps and other types of imagery, the size of image files can often become very large. For instance, it takes 3TB (3,000GB) of color imagery to take aerial photographs of a typical city at a 3-inch (almost 8cm) resolution, and it takes 1.5 TB (1,500GB) of color imagery to cover all of California at a resolution of one meter.

To address the problem RMSI has developed an unique Geodata Overlay Viewer (GOVu) application, which can be used to view imagery with a custom (encrypted) file format “.gov”. Along with the basic navigation functionalities of zooming, panning etc., the Geodata Overlay Viewer provides additional functionalities like export, merge, blend and many more such simplified functions. These functions shall be discussed and demonstrated during the conference.

How the GoVu works can be demonstrated through the following illustration. Aerial photo imagery for London covering 170sq km requires a 7.9GB data volume. Geodata Overlay Viewer or GoVu can handle the same area using 379MB of compressed data volume through a 20:1 compression ratio. This allows for not only the reduction in file sizes while compressing imagery but also gives high quality results. Such a wavelet compression of imagery offers several advantages including reduced image file size, faster access, easier distribution and the ability to work with imagery covering larger areas.