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Framework for Fast Spatial Searches Using the Hierachical Triangular Mesh
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| Spatial searches over the celestial sphere represent the most frequent queries on astrophysics data sets. The AISRP program funded
the original Hierarchical Triangular Mesh library which produced a very fast C++ search engine now used at more than 20 institutions
over the world, also in various Earth Sciences applications. With the recent advances in the worldwide Virtual Observatory effort, we
have now a standard XML data model for space-time data. The community is now ready to deploy sophisticated spatial search engines,
but this requires an API with multiple language bindings and interfaces to multiple database platforms. We seek funding to rewrite,
extend and refine our existing library, make it fully compliant with the VO interface standards, and enhance its functionality and
performance. The new implementation will consist of four layers: a kernel library with all the spatial algorithms, the code for the
hierarchical tree representation of the regions, an extensible interface to describe the spherical regions, and a flexible and fast interface
to relational databases. We will add several new algorithms to the core of the existing library, develop a new VO-compliant API, and
build several new language implementations that others can integrate with their own archives. We will develop a Web Services
implementation of the library, accessible through remote calls. We will integrate our toolkit with the OpenSkyQuery framework for
cross-matching large astronomical catalogs. We will provide a framework for critical analysis of the HTM toolkit, including built-in
unit testing modules. We will build Java, C++ and C# implementations of the library. We will also build a web-service based
visualization toolkit to display the spherical regions specified in a selection. All our code from our three year proposal is public domain
Open Source (FreeBSD) and made available to the public on-line. |
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