Precision markup modeling and display in a global geo-spatial environment

A data organization, scalable structure, and multiresolution visualization approach is described for precision markup modeling in a global geospatial environment. The global environment supports interactive visual navigation from global overviews to details on the ground at the resolution of inches or less. This is a difference in scale of 10 orders of magnitude or more. To efficiently handle details over this range of scales while providing accurate placement of objects, a set of nested coordinate systems is used, which always refers, through a series of transformations, to the fundamental world coordinate system (with its origin at the center of the earth). This coordinate structure supports multi-resolution models of imagery, terrain, vector data, buildings, moving objects, and other geospatial data. Thus objects that are static or moving on the terrain can be displayed without inaccurate positioning or jumping due to coordinate round-off. Examples of high resolution images, 3D objects, and terrain-following annotations are shown.