Discrete Global Grids and Digital Earth

Michael F. Goodchild

Department of Geography
University of California
Santa Barbara, California

Email: good@geog.ucsb.edu

Link to full paper

Digital Earth is being promoted as a framework into which "we can embed vast quantities of information about the planet" (Vice President Gore). It provides an organizational metaphor for information about the Earth by allowing users to search over a virtual rendering of the planet; a call for a framework that can accommodate all kinds of information, including data, computational models of processes, text, and images; and a high-end visualization system allowing rapid change of resolution from global to local. These three interpretations all motivate a search for novel hierarchical data structures, but present distinct problems. The paper reviews the various interpretations of Digital Earth, examines progress in various arenas, and develops a series of principles for the design of global gridding schemes.