SCALGO is a start-up specializing in software for efficient processing of truly massive terrain data. Such data is increasingly becoming available due to the advances in mapping technologies such as airborne LIDAR (laser scanning), but is often not being fully used because Geographic Information System (GIS) applications simply cannot handle the massive data sets.

Building on years of world-leading research in massive data algorithms, SCALGO creates software that is able to efficiently process massive terrain data on normal workstations.

Creating software packages for:

  • constructing high-resolution terrain models from massive LIDAR point clouds (including a quality estimate for each part of a model)
  • simplifying massive terrain models with full control over what features (peaks/depressions) are removed (based on a variety of measures)
  • performing advanced hydrological analysis on massive terrain models, including modeling the risk of flooding due to rising ocean levels and extreme rain events

SCALGO is based on a more than a decade of basic and applied research on algorithms for efficient handling of massive geometric data. In fact, some of the five founding SCALGO partners are considered world-leading researchers on such algorithms. Two of the five partners (Lars Arge and Morten Revsbæk) are affiliated with Center for Massive Data Algorithms (MADALGO) at Aarhus University, which is a cutting-edge basic research center funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (and led by Arge). Two other partners (Pankaj Agarwal and Thomas Mølhave) are affiliated with Duke University, which is consistently ranked within the 10 best universities in the USA and considered on the forefront of research within geometric data algorithms. The fifth partner is Aarhus University.

News

  • June 15, 2010: Meet some of the people behind SCALGO at COM.Geo 2010, June 21-23 in Washington DC.
  • May 31, 2010: SCALGO and EIVA A/S announce the "SCALGO AntiNoise" plugin for NaviModel.
  • January 27, 2010: SCALGO-partner Lars Arge receives prestigious elite researcher award.
Raster model generated from dense point cloud A high-resolution raster terrain model (<0.5m horizontal resolution) generated from a dense LIDAR point cloud.
Orthophoto with quality metric Orthophoto with raster quality metric. Red colors denotes low-quality regions in the raster model (orthophoto courtesy of COWI).
flow modeling example Flow modeling performed on a terrain model. SCALGO software has been used for flow modeling on terrains that are hundreds of gigabyte in size.