Parallel Processing for Terrain Analysis in GIS: Visibility as a Case Study

Abstract

The application of parallel processing to computationally intensive GIS problems has been advocated and illustrated by many researchers over the last twenty years. Despite this, GIS users have been slow to capitalize on the potential which the technology offers. Whilst today’s processors are adequate for the majority of GIS uses, some applications are too processor-intensive to be deemed viable for serial machines. This is particularly true of many digital terrain modelling applications, which has been the primary focus of parallel processing in GIS to date. This paper considers the problem of parallelizing line-of-sight (LOS) calculations in determining the visibility indices of entities such as elevation vertices in a digital terrain model (DTM). This is a requirement of site selection for a particular development, especially if visibility, or more specifically, visual intrusion is likely to be a key factor in gaining planning approval. To demonstrate the simplicity and applicability of parallelizing such GIS problems, this paper presents some parallel approaches in an efficient data organization, framework using a Transputer network. Speed-up performance can be increased by a factor of twelve using a simple network of twenty Transputers. As vast quantities of spatial data become available, particularly DTMs at larger scales and denser resolution, the demands for parallel processing will inevitably increase. It is hoped that the continued experiences of today’s researchers at applying parallel processing to well-defined problems will benefit the GIS users of tomorrow.