High-performance computing in GIS: techniques and applications
Natalija M. Stojanovic, Dragan H. Stojanovic · International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems · 2013
In this paper, the application of High–Performance Computing (HPC) techniques in processing of geospatial data in Geographic Information System (GIS) is presented. We evaluate two parallel/distributed architectures and programming models: Message Passing Interface (MPI) over Network of Workstations (NoW) and Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) on Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in well–known problems in GIS: map matching and slope computations. A distributed application for map–matching computation over large–spatial data sets consisting of moving points and a road network was implemented using MPI and experimentally evaluated. A slope computations based on large–digital elevation model data was performed on GPU using CUDA which enable hundreds of threads to run concurrently employing multiprocessors on a graphics card. Experimental evaluations indicate improvement in performance and shows feasibility of using NoW and multiprocessors on a graphic card for HPC in GIS.