An SDOG-based intrinsic method for three-dimensional modelling of large-scale spatial objects

Three-dimensional (3D) modelling is a powerful tool for spatial representation and data analysis, and large scale is the common feature for spatial objects in Global Spatial Information System/Science (GSIS), especially in Earth System Science (ESS). It is important to develop a new 3D modelling method for large-scale spatial objects to meet the demands of global change and ESS researches. The projection-based methods, which have been applied for hundreds of years, are inadequate to perform large-scale spatial modelling, while the embedding methods are unnatural to represent the gravitational features of geo-objects, making the spatial modelling complex and the global data analysis hard. Although the current intrinsic methods are capable of dealing with large-scale spatial modelling, they have some defects such as shrinking, overlapping, non-latitude–longitude consistent, triangular prism-shaped or non-uniformly subdivided and lack of a unified representation model on geometric, topologic and attributive ...