Secondary Storage Terrain Visualization in a Client-server Environment: a Survey

With the constant increase in the size of terrain data, it is becoming less feasible to have all the data in main memory when performing visualization. The data exchange between main memory and secondary storage becomes a bottle-neck in terrain visualization. The slow-down of the visualization performance is even more obvious when visualizing terrain in a client-server environment because of the long response time caused by transferring large amount of data over the network. This paper surveys recent secondary storage terrain visualization techniques in a client-server environment in recent years, with a particular focus on reducing data exchange between main memory and secondary storage, and between the client and server using spatial indexes with Multiresolution Terrain Model (MTM). Previous works are compared according to their ability to reduce data retrieval, reduce network transmission, data caching and support for different data structures. Research problems that require further investigation are identified and discussed.