Algorithms in GIS (cs3225): Schedule

Here is a detailed schedule of the class, to be updated as the semester progresses:

9/3	Class introduction. Lab: Unix warmup | Using make | Emacs and vim | C 101 | BasicsI | BasicsII Sean's unix tutorial. Programming 0 [max malloc()'ed memory]
9/8, 9/10	Spatial data models and representation. Raster and vector models. ata structures for meshes (winged-edge; half-edge). Slides: Data models and representation Programming 1 [read an ascii grid] (due Tue 9/15)
9/15, 9/17, 9/22	Lab: brief intro on rendering (terrains) with OpenGL 1.x. graphics1 | graphics1.tar Programming 2 [render an ascii grid 2d] (due Tue 9/22) Programming 3 (render grid 3d) (due Tue 9/29)
9/24, 9/29, 10/1, 10/6	Flow on terrains. Flow direction and flow accumulation. Flat areas. Watersheds. Drainage basins. Watershed partitioning and Pfafstetter hierarchy. Flooding. Slides: Flow | Flooding Programming 4 (flow direction and accumulation)) Project 1: Flooding.
10/8, 10/15, 10/20, 10/22	Visibility on terrains. Basic algorithm for viewshed. From the straightforward algorithm to a radial sweep. A detour through augmenting RB-trees. Visibility and horizons. Viewshed via a concentric sweep. Interpolation effects. Computing all viewsheds on grid DEMs. Slides: Visibility Project 2: Visibility.
10/29	Line simplification. The problem, its weak and strong versions. Douglas Peucker's algorithm. The Imai-Iri idea: Computing the smallest epsilon-approximation via the shortcut graph. Slides: (not yet..)
11/3, 11/5	Terrain simplification. Slides: Terrain simplification Reading: Fast polygonal approximations of terrain and height fields (Garland and Heckbert 1995) | Garland's Terra, Scape, QSlim | Jonathan Shewchuck's website; Project 3: Simplification
11/10	Quadtrees. Slides: Quadtrees
11/12	Invited lecture: Using ArcGis in EOS, by Eileen Johnson, EOS.
11/17	Space-filling curves. Slides: Space-filling curves
11/19	Paper reading. Approximating the Visible Region of a Point on a Terrain (Ben-Moshe, Carmi and Katz, ALENEX/ANALCO 2004) | questions
11/24	Paper reading. Visibility preserving simplification(Ben-Moshe, Katz, Mitchell, Nir, SoCG 2002)
12/1	Project 3.
12/3	Project 3.
12/8	Project 3.
12/10	Project 3.

Additional readings:

• Readings:
  • From point cloud to Grid DEM: a scalable approiach (Agarwal, Arge, Danner, SDH 2006)
  • Visibility preserving simplification(Ben-Moshe, Katz, Mitchell, Nir, SoCG 2002)
  • A hybrid MPI/GPU interpolation for grid DEM construction (Danner et al, ACMGIS 2012) | questions
  • Approximating the Visible Region of a Point on a Terrain (Ben-Moshe, Carmi and Katz, ALENEX/ANALCO 2004)
  • Generating Raster DEM from Mass Points via TIN Streaming (Isenburg, Liu, Shewchuck , Snoeyink, Thirion; GIScience 2006)
• Sea level rise
  • USGS 2009 report: National Assessment if coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise (notes: they compute CVI=coastal vulnerability index; they have nice pics; do they compute flooding at all?? they have nice pictures with vulnerability of east and west coast)
  • USGS: Vulnerability of US National parks to sea-level rise and coastal change (notes:2 pages, great info; great discussion of contribution factors) -->
  • NOAA 2011: New mapping tool and technique for visualizing sea level rise and coastal flooding impacts
  • Photogr. Eng. and Remore Sensing, 2009: GIS analysis of global impacts from sea level rise (Li, Rowley, Kostelnick, Braaten, Melsel, Hulbutta) (notes: they use the iterative algorithm and observe that onnectivity check is necessary; good info of global datasets, GTOPO, ETOPO, etc; good results, general info) -->
• Image simplification
  • Fast Polygonal Approximation of Terrains and Height Fields (Michael Garland and Paul S. Heckbert, 1995)
  • Garland's Terra, Scape, QSlim
  • Jonathan Shewchuck's website; links to TRIANGLE and streaming geometric software.
  • Image Compression Terrain Simplification (Ben-Mosche, Serruya, Shamir, 2007)
  • Digital elevation models and TIN algorithms (van Kreveld)
  • QuadTIN: Quadtree based Triangulated Irregular Networks (Pajarola, Antonijuan, and Lario, 2002)
  • Image Simplification and Vectorization (Olsen, Gooch, 2011)
• Parallel viewshed on terrains
  • Efficient data structure and highly scalable algorithm for total viewshed computation (Tabik, Cervilla, Zapata, Romero; IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing; 2014)
  • Simultaneous computation of total viewshed on large high resolution grids (Tabik, Zapata, Romero; International Journal of Geographical Information Science; 2012) -->
  • A Parallel Sweep Line Algorithm for Visibility Computation (Ferreira, Andrade, Magalhes, Franklin, Pena; Proc. Brazilian Symp. on GeoInformatics, 2013 )
  • ??