GeoDec: A Framework to Effectively Visualize and Query Geospatial Data for Decision-Making

In this paper, we introduce GeoDec, an end-to-end system that enables geospatial decision-making by virtualizing the real-world geolocations. With GeoDec, first the geolocation of interest is rapidly and realistically simulated and all relevant geospatial data are accurately fused and embedded in the virtualized model. Subsequently, user can interactively formulate her abstract decision-making queries in terms of a wide range of fundamental spatiotemporal queries supported by GeoDec and evaluate the queries in order to verify her decisions in the virtual world prior to executing the decisions in real world. GeoDec blends a variety of techniques developed in the fields of databases, artificial intelligence, computer graphics and computer vision into an integrated three-tier architecture. We elaborate on various components of this architecture, which include an extensive, multimodal and dynamic data tier, an efficient, expressive and extensible query-interface tier and an immersive, flexible and effective presentation tier.