GIS Resources and Computational Facilities

At ORNL, a variety of resources and computational facilities are used by the Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) group. Included are general-purpose and specialized hardware, locally-written and commercial software, and in-house and commercial databases. The GISLab, continually evolving, supports most normal operations, while ORNL supercomputers may be used to support special image processing and spatial analysis needs.

Within GIST, a variety of hardware platforms are used with both locally-developed and integrated commercial packages including various ESRI products, Leica/ERDAS Imagine, MapInfo, Intergraph/MicroStation, AutoCAD, AVS, and a number of other special-purpose graphics/spatial packages.

Stereo display workstations are used for 3-D visualization and softcopy ortho-photogrammetric computations, multi-media workstations and PCs integrate audio, video, graphics, and thematic information with various types of geospatial data, and, in the field, laptop systems are used with GPS equipment for real-time acquisition of locational and thematic data. Other equipment includes scanners, high-resolution printers, large-format plotters, videotape equipment, and, to provide housing for the massive amounts of data, UNIX servers providing several terabytes of online storage.

High-speed networking capabilities link all the computational facilities across the Oak Ridge DOE complex and provide access to external networks. GIST systems employ switched Ethernet with switched/routed gigabit Ethernet links to the ORNL backbone providing direct, high-speed access to ORNL supercomputers.

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Email comments to: bhaduribl@ornl.gov