Online Maps: The Next Generation
A team of computer scientists at USC’s Integrated Media Systems Center, led by Cyrus Shahabi, is providing the magic to make those maps interactive, three-dimensional, extremely accurate and easy to access.
The technology is being developed in a project called GeoDec: Geospatial Decision Making.
“GeoDec is designed to enable an information-rich and realistic three-dimensional visualization and/or simulation of geographical locations, such as cities or states, rapidly and accurately,” said Shahabi, who specializes in databases and information management. “The technology has a similar look and feel to the new, high-powered interactive mapping tools, such as Google Earth and MSN Virtual Earth.”
For a start, with the GeoDec technology, Shahabi and his team have shown that they can build accurate 3-D building models in a relatively short time – a fraction of the time required by other existing technologies and procedures.
“We can also map images and live video textures to the models to make them even more realistic,” he said.
In addition to those advances, GeoDec technology can automatically and accurately integrate a broad range of spatial and temporal data, including road networks and GPS data, into the model to prepare it for sophisticated, spatio-temporal data analysis. That type of analysis is necessary for decision-making tasks.
An abundance of geospatial information – such as digital maps, high-quality satellite images, road network data, traffic data, 3-D building models, global positioning system data and more – is rapidly transforming the Web into a geospatial Internet.
Shahabi said the time is right to build more advanced data management and visualization systems, such as GeoDec, to integrate all of this information and make it easily accessible to users.
“The idea is not just to allow navigation through a 3-D model, but to be able to submit queries and get information about the area seamlessly and effortlessly,” he said. “Our main challenge is to figure out how we can quickly and cheaply integrate, visualize and simulate all aspects of a geographic region.”
The ability to create high-fidelity, information-rich models of cities, states or countries is critical for a wide variety of decision-makers, including city managers, city planners, emergency response planners and first responders.
Applications can be made in commercial development, tourism and hospitality industries, retail sales and advertising, job training in simulators and in the field, and transportation and military operations planning.
Shahabi’s GeoDec team is made up of faculty members specializing in four areas: databases, artificial intelligence (Craig Knoblock), computer vision (Ram Nevatia) and graphics (Ulrich Neumann and Suya You).
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USC in the News
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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