uSMART Mass Data Module (MDM)

Efficiently manage massive amounts of data.
NOT only point clouds but also lines, TINs, etc.
Import, store and display BILLIONS of points at incredible speed.
LIDAR and/or High Density point clouds.

It is no longer necessary to struggle with "breaking up" projects that consist of large volumes of data. With the MDM, ALL the data in your project, regardless of the source e.g. scanners (LIDAR and/or High Density) or Photogrammetry (DTM correlation) can be managed as a single entity. This means that you can view your entire project concurrently without losing accuracy.

The Mass Data Module is designed to efficiently manage large amounts of data. Not only can large datasets be imported, the system is also capable of storing and displaying the data highly effectively. Once the data is imported into the internal database, refresh times are typically 1 SECOND or LESS no matter what the zoom ratio is or size of the data. e.g. 14 BILLION points.

This fly-through was done entirely in uSMART effortlessly using the MDM (Mass Data Module), the Orbiter (uSMART Orbiter Viewer) and Base Mapping features such as MPoints, SLines as well as the Raster Viewer. The data that is seen in the fly-through was created from orthophotos and a TIN. A 0.25m DTM of 3-Dimensional points was extracted from the TIN using the SLine DTM routine. The colours (RGB values) of the points were extracted from the orthophotos during the same process.

The uSMART Mass Data Module is designed to overcome the speed, capacity and memory problems of handling billions of elements (e.g. point cloud data, TINs, etc.). Not only can large datasets be created but the system is also capable of manipulating and displaying the data highly effectively.

The unlimited data capacity and the ability to open as many files as the operating system will allow in a single project, makes the Mass Data Module a must for large data projects. Coupled with this is the speed at which the points are imported (approximately 189 thousand points per second) and the speed of manipulating the data.

The MDM is unhindered by the 2 or 3GB virtual memory limit of the 32bit Windows architecture. The use of memory is controlled by the user and memory defragmentation is automatically incorporated.

Elements in the uSMART MDM files are stored in a hierarchical cubical structure and are therefore searched for by location when required e.g. for display and editing. Cubes are resampled, effectively generalising the data for optimum display speed.

There are very few systems that can for example handle billions of points efficiently. Even if a system is capable of importing the points, a simple refresh of the screen can take up to a few hours. With uSMART, once the data has been imported into the internal database, accessing, viewing and manipulating large files e.g. 964GB (14 billion points) is fast, taking 1 second or less to open the file and sub seconds to fit the view, zoom in/out or pan into a new area. Restarting the system from scratch takes less than a second.

Routines are available to "clean" the data i.e. remove outliers, identify high/low points, smoothing, thinning, identify a surface e.g. ground.

Laser Ranging Survey techniques are becoming more popular and this will no doubt increase as these systems become more affordable. Below are some salient features of the MDM:

• Works seamlessly in MicroStation therefore tools such as AccuSnap, Fit View, Element balloon popups, etc. function as before with the MDM data.
• Highly memory efficient with built in memory defragmentation, etc.
• Memory is also fully user configurable.
• Truly unlimited in the volume of the data. The MDM does not slow down regardless of the volume of data and can span multiple drives.
• Mostly sub second redraw times in any area during pan, zoom, refresh, etc. and virtually never longer than 2 seconds regardless if data is in memory or not.
  
• Immediate start up and shut down i.e. mostly sub second.
• Network friendly i.e. data is retrieved and transmitted in small packets with low speed loss.
• Smooth panning, rotation etc.
• Not only points but other Elements as well such as lines, curves etc.
• A unique 32 byte (not 32 bit) ID for each Element for database connections, associations etc.
• Hierarchical structure of Groups and Layers.
• Undo/Redo across sessions.
• Metadata for each point so data can be e.g. classified and filtered. (Full support for all LAS metadata.)
• Support for all the major file formats e.g. LAS, PTS, RealWorks, ERDAS, ESRI, etc. and adding various formats as needed.
• Typically imports over 189 thousand points per second.
• Imports/Exports directly from/to MicroStation i.e. for standard MicroStation Elements.
• Dynamic walk-through and easy fly-through creation. Walk-throughs are highly efficient for Close Range/High Density Laser.