Research Briefs

TerraFly is a technology and tools for visualization and querying of geospatial data. The visualization component of the system provides users with the experience of virtual "flight" over maps comprised of aerial and satellite imagery overlaid with geo-referenced data. The data drilling and querying component of the system allows the users to easily explore geospatial data, to create geospatial queries, and get instant answers supported by high-performance multidimensional search mechanisms. TerraFly's server farm ingests, geo-locates, cleanses, mosaics, and cross-references 40TB of basemap data and user-specific data streams. TerraFly's Application Programming Interface allows rapid deployment of interactive Web applications and has been used to produce systems for disaster mitigation, ecology, real estate, tourism, and municipalities. TerraFly's Web-based client interface is accessible from anywhere via any standard Web browser, with no client software to install. TerraFly tools include user-friendly geospatial querying, data drill-down, interfaces with real-time data suppliers, demographic analysis, annotation, route dissemination via autopilots, customizable applications, production of aerial atlases, and an application programming interface (API) for production of Web-based map applications. The TerraFly project has been featured on TV news programs (including FOX TV News), worldwide press, covered by the New York Times, USA Today, NPR, and Science and Nature journals. The project's primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation (NSF). Of the 53,000 NSF-funded projects in 2009, it chose 120, including TerraFly, for the NSF annual report to Congress.