NASA SBIR 02-1 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
ProLogic, Inc
1000 Technology Drive
Fairmont , WV   26554 - 8824
(304 ) 363 - 1157

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Chetan Desai
chetan@prologic-inc.com
1000 Technology Drive
Fairmont , WV   26554 - 8824
(304 ) 363 - 1157

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The proposed innovation is new technology to enable the visualization of large unstructured geospatial datasets, such as LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) data, within a commercial desktop Geographic Information System (GIS). The proposed architecture uses a high performance computing (HPC) platform to process the datasets and create visualization models, and then integrates 3D visualization into a GIS environment. For this research, cluster computing (a collection of interconnected commodity PCs implementing parallel processing techniques) will serve as the ?back-end?, with visualization and GIS integration provided through an extension to the ArcGIS system.

The significance of the innovation is that it would:
* Provide users new ability to visualize large datasets at their full resolution at varying scales;
* Be implemented as a commercial GIS software extension, thus:
- leveraging geospatial data and geoprocessing techniques supported by GIS systems
- extending capability without requiring users to learn a new software interface;
* Enable users to process the data faster and more efficiently, using real-time data browse within the GIS?s display window;
* Incorporate the necessary computing power to process the large unstructured datasets for visualization (for now, through the use of cluster computing?future hardware improvements would provide additional high-performance computing platforms).

POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
There are numerous applications of the proposed innovation for commercial organizations and non-NASA agencies. Some of these applications include:
* Weather Investigations: The 3D point cloud model often represents weather data. This extension could greatly facilitate the modeling and predicting of weather phenomena.
* Defense Applications: This extension has great potential in the defense market. Much research has been conducted regarding feature extraction and target identification of high-density data. For example, DARPA is currently working on a project called Jigsaw, which is aimed at target verification and identification. This extension could greatly advance that endeavor.
* Disaster Response: This extension could be very useful for disaster response agencies like FEMA. FEMA requires high-resolution terrain models and is very interested in LIDAR data. This extension could enable FEMA to process the large dataset in a fast efficient manner. Fast processing is critical for effective response to natural disasters.

POTENTIAL NASA APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Some applications for the NASA organization include:
* Planetary applications: This extension can be used to generate terrain from satellite-based LIDAR systems for Mars exploration. The spatial analysis capabilities will enable NASA to accurately choose optimal landing sites or base stations.
* Outreach: A variation of the proposed extension could be used in museums or classrooms as a way to teach non-technical personal about different types of remote sensing data and their uses.
* Earth Science Applications: This extension could enhance the wide variety of Earth Science investigations conducted within NASA.