NVIDIA to Present Keynote “GPUs & Geospatial Computing” at COM.Geo 2012

Washington, DC – Jan 30, 2012 Dr. David Luebke, Director of Research at NVIDIA, will deliver a keynote “GPUs & Geospatial Computing” at COM.Geo 2012 conference which will be held on July 1-2, Washington, DC.

Computer graphics and image processing are among the most important tools for geospatial applications, so it is no surprise that graphics algorithms and hardware have long played a vital role in geospatial computing. For example, TIN or DEM terrain modeling makes heavy use of computer graphics algorithms; real-time large terrain visualization employs view-dependent level of detail (LOD) techniques; remote sensing and feature extraction applications often use the image processing and computer vision prowess of graphics hardware; stereo rendering provides a useful tool for visualization; and point cloud rendering is a crucial component for LIDAR data processing. Of course all these rendering and visualization tasks ultimately take place on a graphics processing unit, or GPU. However, modern GPUs have outgrown their graphics heritage in many ways to emerge as the world's most successful parallel computing architecture.

The raw computational horsepower of these chips has expanded their reach well beyond graphics. Today's GPUs not only render video game frames, CAD models, and GIS terrains; they also accelerate astrophysics, video transcoding, image processing, protein folding, seismic exploration, computational finance, radioastronomy, heart surgery, self-driving cars - the list goes on and on. Their massively parallel computational approach isn't just a good idea, it is the only path forward for scalable computing: if your code isn't intrinsically parallel, you will not be able to tackle ever-bigger problems in the future. I will discuss some of the technological and business imperatives driving modern parallel computing, and close with some examples of GPU parallel computing in geospatial processing.

Dr. David Luebke helped found NVIDIA Research in 2006 after eight years on the faculty of the University of Virginia. Luebke received his Ph.D. under Fred Brooks at the University of North Carolina in 1998. His principal research interests are GPU computing and real-time computer graphics. Luebke's honors include the NVIDIA Distinguished Inventor award, the NSF CAREER and DOE Early Career PI awards, and the ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics "Test of Time Award". Dr. Luebke has co-authored a book, a SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater piece, a major museum exhibit visited by over 110,000 people, and dozens of papers, articles, chapters, and patents on computer graphics and GPU computing.

For more information on the COM.Geo 2012 conference, please visit: http://www.com-geo.org/conferences/2012/index.htm

About COM.Geo Institute

Computing for Geospatial Research Institute (COM.Geo Institute) is one of the leading-edge geospatial computing research organizations in the world. COM.Geo institute offers R&D, training courses and certificate program, and conferences. Now COM.Geo is playing a guiding role to advancing the technologies in computing for geospatial research and application fields. COM.Geo R&D focuses on the latest computing technologies for multidisciplinary research and development that enables the exploration in geospatial areas. COM.Geo training center offers the most up-to-date training for working professionals to boost their technical knowledge and skills of computing for geospatial technology. The training courses and certificate program is for a multitude of backgrounds and professions. COM.Geo conference is an exclusive international event that connects researchers, developers, scientists, and application users from academia, government, and industry in both computing and geospatial fields.