New Parallel Data Engineering Solution Speeds Up Drone Image Processing

By Mike Ball / 04 Jun 2017
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Radian computed image

Manifold has announced the release of Radian Studio, a massively parallel data engineering environment for DBMS (database management systems) and GIS (geographic information systems).

Automatically running on thousands of GPU cores plus all CPU cores, Radian allows users to explore, extract, visualize, blend, transform, load, data-mine and analyze both traditional data types in tables as well as spatial data types like UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)-captured imagery, vector geometry, multispectral rasters, location data, drawings and maps.

Users can open a 100 GB aerial image instantly, manipulate it with spatial SQL and then load it into an Oracle spatial database with perfect spatial registration. Data can then be copied from Oracle and pasted into PostgreSQL while transforming coordinate systems on the fly, and displayed on webservers using any standard protocol.

Radian automatically applies thousands of fully parallel capabilities, including automatic transformation of spatial infrastructure using thousands of coordinate systems within hundreds of spatial standards. Radian can connect to virtually every database server, web data source or file format known in DBMS or GIS.

Users who don’t know SQL can point and click their way through easy dialogs to leverage parallel power in hundreds of data engineering and analytic tasks, and then transition to SQL using Radian’s ability to write SQL for you. More advanced users can script using eleven different scripting languages for total programmability.

Radian runs 64-bit on Windows desktop computers with no in-memory server farm required. Radian runs standalone as a fully parallel CPU/GPU DBMS for local work, or connected to multiple different database servers as a massively powerful, parallel client database engine, or both at the same time.

Radian transforms data in place within existing database storage or within Radian’s own ultra-fast storage. Standalone, Radian easily handles projects with hundreds of GB on a desktop. Connected to external DBMS servers or to the cloud, Radian reaches petabytes of data. Using inexpensive desktop GPU cards, Radian can execute tasks that choke a non-Radian system, even if the data stays resident on external database servers.

Radian combines the strengths of GIS and DBMS to accomplish what either DBMS or GIS alone cannot, and adds the massively parallel processing power of GPU DBMS and manycore CPU. It enhances existing DBMS and GIS by delivering a blend of geospatial and traditional data capabilities in a single, highly integrated package that integrates with database and spatial tools already deployed.

Posted by Mike Ball Mike Ball is our resident technical editor here at Unmanned Systems Technology. Combining his passion for teaching, advanced engineering and all things unmanned, Mike keeps a watchful eye over everything related to the unmanned technical sector. With over 10 years’ experience in the unmanned field and a degree in engineering, Mike’s been heading up our technical team here for the last 8 years. Connect & Contact