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Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) research

A Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS) is a unique type of spatial reference system comprising of a hierarchy of uniquely identifiable discrete grid cells that span the globe at multiple resolutions. Several schemes for tesselation and indexing schemes exist and DGGS can support efficient management, storage, integration, exploration, mining, and visualisation of large geospatial datasets. We conduct research into innovative DGGS indexing and storage software and query APIs to integrate, visualise and analyse arbitrary raster and vector data and perform ML workloads on DGGS-based datacubes.

Our DGGS-related Publications

Kmoch, A., Sahr, K., Chan, W. T., and Uuemaa, E.: IGEO7: A new hierarchically indexed hexagonal equal-area discrete global grid system, AGILE GIScience Ser., 6, 32, DOI: 10.5194/agile-giss-6-32-2025, 2025.

Kmoch, A., Bovy, B., Magin, J., Abernathey, R., Coca-Castro, A., Strobl, P., Fouilloux, A., Loos, D., Uuemaa, E., Chan, W. T., Delouis, J.-M., and Odaka, T.: XDGGS: A community-developed Xarray package to support planetary DGGS data cube computations, Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVIII-4/W12-2024, 75–80, DOI: 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W12-2024-75-2024, 2024.

Kmoch, A., Vasilyev, I., Virro, H., & Uuemaa, E. (2022). Area and shape distortions in open-source discrete global grid systems. Big Earth Data, 6(3), 256–275. DOI: 10.1080/20964471.2022.2094926

Kmoch, A., Matsibora, O., Vasilyev, I., and Uuemaa, E.: Applied open-source Discrete Global Grid Systems, AGILE GIScience Ser., 3, 41, DOI: 10.5194/agile-giss-3-41-2022, 2022.

More detailed background articles