Using Wavelet Transforms in 3D Mapping
Abstract
The Naval Research Laboratory's Digital Mapping, Charting and Geodesy Analysis Program is Investigating the application of wavelet technology to terrain approximation in 3D mapping. The wavelet transform allows the lab to obtain the frequency content of gridded elevation data while retaining the spatial context. They use a 2D discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to reduce Digital Terrain Elevation Data to low and high frequency components. The low frequency components represent widespread fluctuations in terrain and over large arena give a very clone approximation to the original data net. Each application of a wavelet transform gives them a 75% reduction in the amount of data that must be displayed. A level 2, 2D DWT allows them to represent large amounts of terrain data with only 6.25% of the original data. A reverse transform on the reduced data set makes possible the restoration of any level up to the original data with only minor loss, making the application suitable for multi-resolution systems. Thin application is also ideal for time-critical applications. Processing 1,073,179 DTED elevations down to 67,304 takes approximately one-half second. Optimized triangulated irregular network algorithms are reported to require over 45 seconds for a similar sized data set. This report describes the application of wavelet technology to Interest-based 3D mapping. In addition to custom 2D maps that may consist of vector, ranter and gridded data, users may generate 3D maps by area-of-interest.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 28, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA402211
Entities
People
- John T. Sample
- Kevin B. Shaw
- Roy V. Ladner
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory