Introducing LuciadLightspeed product tiers

LuciadLightspeed is a software product that enables you to rapidly develop situational awareness applications. It provides a base application and software components focused on connecting to, visualizing, and analyzing geospatial data. It offers unparalleled performance, high accuracy, and full customizability.

LuciadLightspeed is offered in three product tiers: Essential, Advanced and Pro. Each product tier combines certain capabilities that are designed for typical use cases. You can find an overview of all tiers and their included and optional capabilities in Table 1, “Overview table of the LuciadLightspeed product tiers”.

Table 1. Overview table of the LuciadLightspeed product tiers
Functionality Essential Advanced Pro

Core GIS Engine

Projection, Datum & Geoid models

Transformation and Projection Engine

4D Cartesian & Geodesic Geometry Model

Unified Data Model

CPU 2D Visualization Engine

GPU 2D, 3D, VR Visualization Engine

Vertical, Profile & Timeline Views

Customizable Symbology

CPU, GPU Image Processing Engine

2D/3D/4D Interaction Model

Visual Analytics

High Quality, Large Format Printing

Raster Connectors

Vector Connectors

Point Clouds & Reality Meshes

OGC Standards

Advanced Raster Connectors

Advanced GIS Engine

Real-Time Engine

Tiling Engine

Database Connectors

O

Terrain Analysis Engine

O

O

Weather & Environment Standards

O

O

Graph & Routing Engine

O

O

Radar Connectors

O

Aviation Standards

O

Defense Standards

O

Defense Symbology

O

Infrastructure Standards

O

Maritime Standards

O

S-63

O

= Feature included

O = Optional

= Feature unavailable

Over the years, LuciadLightspeed has expanded with many new (optional) components. These components allow you to tailor-make your product based on your project needs. Starting with V2017.0, the list of optional components for LuciadLightspeed has been rationalized and simplified.

About LuciadLightspeed Essential

LuciadLightspeed Essential is the first product tier for LuciadLightspeed, combining all capabilities needed regardless of the application domain you are working in. It defines a strong entry-level product baseline for internet-connected, general-purpose applications. The Essential product tier offers a broad set of default geospatial capabilities.

Options for LuciadLightspeed Essential

There are no optional components available for LuciadLightspeed Essential. Please contact the Support Desk Services if you would like more information about accessing additional LuciadLightspeed capabilities.

About LuciadLightspeed Advanced

LuciadLightspeed Advanced is the second product tier for LuciadLightspeed, targeted towards advanced applications that may require real-time data feeds, specialized data formats, and advanced spatial or geospatial calculations. The Advanced product tier combines a broad set of default geospatial capabilities with access to a number of options.

Components of LuciadLightspeed Advanced

LuciadLightspeed Advanced offers access to all components available within LuciadLightspeed Essential, and adds these components:

Options for LuciadLightspeed Advanced

LuciadLightspeed Advanced provides access to the following optional components:

Please contact the Luciad Support Desk Services if you would like more information about accessing additional capabilities of LuciadLightspeed.

About LuciadLightspeed Pro

LuciadLightspeed Pro is the third product tier for LuciadLightspeed, targeted towards very demanding applications, for example in terms of performance, required analytics, or specific data types. The Pro product tier combines a complete set of high-end geospatial capabilities with access to a number of domain-specific options.

Components of LuciadLightspeed Pro

LuciadLightspeed Advanced offers access to all components available within LuciadLightspeed Advanced, and adds these components:

Options for LuciadLightspeed Pro

LuciadLightspeed Pro provides access to the following optional components:

Please contact our Support Desk Services if you would like more information about accessing additional capabilities of LuciadLightspeed.

Overview of LuciadLightspeed components

LuciadLightspeed

LuciadLightspeed software comprises an extensive suite of customizable components that meet the demands for rapid development of high-end situational awareness applications and services.

The LuciadLightspeed capabilities include but are not limited to:

  • A hybrid 2D/3D view for easy and rapid development of applications with both 2D and/or 3D functionalities as well as Vertical, Profile, Timeline & Stereo Views

  • 4D Geometries with extensive map-centric editing, labeling and styling options

  • Support for hundreds of coordinate reference systems and on-the-fly transformations between them

  • Visual analytics like heat maps and clustering of information

  • High quality and large format printing

This component also provides a set of vector, raster and service connectors. Each of the connectors adds support for an additional format to the product.

LuciadLightspeed Essential components

Core GIS Engine, Projection, Datum & Geoid models, and Transformation and Projection Engine

These components are LuciadFusion Essential components.

They offer access to and representation of data in any coordinate reference system (geodetic, geocentric, topocentric, grid) and in any projection.

You can perform geodetic calculations, transformations, and ortho-rectification.

You can serve data on-the-fly, and fuse and tile of data in any coordinate reference. LuciadFusion also offers accurate and correct warping of both vector and raster data.

4D Cartesian & Geodesic Geometry Model, and Unified Data Model

These components are LuciadFusion Essential components.

These components relate to data modeling.

Any data format can be supported. You can represent all object geometries and their metadata, and apply any data filter.

The components include support for complex geometries like geo-buffers, arcs and arc bands, and radar coverage volumes.

You can accurately define radar coverage beams and other sensor detection ranges as 3D volumes, and set up geofencing services based on those volumes.

Customizable symbology

This component is a LuciadFusion Essential component.

  • Apply flexible styling (layers, icons, line styles, fill styles, transparency) to your data and customize it using OGC-defined styled layer descriptor/ symbology encoding (SLD/SE) standards through the LuciadFusion Studio. This includes both vector and raster data.

  • Extend SLD or implement and plug in custom layer factories for advanced styling using density plots and heat maps, for example.

  • Include processing in your styling, such as extracting contours from raster data before styling, using fill and line styles.

  • Apply advanced labeling of vector data, including on-path labeling.

CPU, GPU Image Processing Engine

This component is a LuciadFusion Essential component.

  • Experience advanced, high-performance processing and rendering of raster data, including high dynamic range (HDR) and multi-spectral imagery.

  • Apply image processing chains using a complete set of image algebra operators that can be applied to any raster imagery (including weather data and multi-spectral data) before serving the data over OGC services, or before exporting data (for example, to OGC GeoPackage).

  • Accomplish a high-performance, accelerated OpenCL implementation for multi-core servers or GPU-accelerated servers with automatic fallback to a high-performance multithreaded CPU implementation.

2D/3D/4D Interaction Model

This component offers ready-to-use controllers for map interaction:

  • Standard map controls (zoom, pan, select)

  • Editing/creating geometries

  • Map rotation

  • Distance measurements

  • Multi-touch

  • And more

You can easily create other controllers for custom interaction.

Visual analytics

This component aims at providing an understanding of your geospatial data using visual analytics tools.

It offers:

  • Configurable clustering algorithms to aggregate a multitude of data objects into easily distinguishable clusters based on their properties

  • Slice and filter data dimensions for analysis

  • Use swipe, flicker, and portholes to uncover similarity and change between images

  • Perform density calculations and display the resulting heat maps with hardware acceleration

High Quality, Large Format Printing

Configure, preview and print snapshots of LuciadLightspeed views in high quality, including custom layers. Print in large formats or use multi-page support to stitch together a large print.

Raster and Vector Connectors

This component is a LuciadFusion Essential component.

This component allows you to access data in many vector and raster formats.

The format support integrates with the data-agnostic visualization and analysis capabilities of the Luciad portfolio. If needed, multi-leveling and tiling can be applied.

Adding support for new, custom formats is a straightforward, well-documented process, but most common data formats are already supported.

You can serve through the OGC service protocols.

The following formats are supported:

Raster data

BIL, Bing Maps, BMP, DTED, ESRI TFW and JGW, ETOPO, GeoTIFF and BigTIFF, GIF, JPEG, JPEG2000 (includes an encoder), MapInfo TAB, MBTiles, PNG, PPM, USGS DEM

Vector data

CGM, Collada, ESRI Shape, GeoJSON, MapInfo MIF and MAP, MBTiles, LiDAR LASer and LASZip (LAZ), OpenFlight (3-D), OSGB 3D meshes, SVG, Wavefront OBJ (3-D)

Point Clouds & Reality Meshes

This component is a LuciadFusion Essential component.

This component allows you to connect to and visualize point clouds and reality meshes. Smart loading of 3D Tiles is available, as well as GPU-based visualization.

Furthermore, you can:

  • Stream as OGC 3D tiles or HSPC

  • Serve reality meshes on the fly, directly from the source

The following standards, formats and services are supported:

  • OSGB

  • LAS and LAZ

  • OGC 3D tiles

OGC standards

This component is a LuciadFusion Essential component.

This component allows you to connect to several OGC web services and read data in several OGC formats.

Standards, formats and services: OGC CSW, GeoPackage, GML, KML, WCS, WFS(-T), WMS, WMTS, OGC Filter 2.0 (Spatial filter capabilities can be enabled from the Advanced GIS Engine listed under Advanced and Pro options), OGC Symbology Encoding (SE), ISO 19115 metadata.

Lucy

Lucy is a LuciadLightspeed Essential component. It is a powerful high-level application framework for rapidly building applications that let you explore, analyze, and edit all kinds of geospatial data. Lucy is based on LuciadLightspeed, and integrates the functionality of LuciadLightspeed and many of its components in a configurable application.

Lucy comes with a lot of common GIS functionality already built in. All that functionality is available in LuciadLightspeed as well, but there you still have to write all the boilerplate code to tie it all together. If you use Lucy, you get all that code for free.

The Lucy end user applications serve as a demonstration of this benefit. They are full-fledged geospatial applications, come in 3 GUI varieties, and remain fully extensible and customizable.

Fusion Client

This component is a LuciadFusion Essential component.

It allows you to connect to LuciadFusion Tile Stores, and visualize the data from LuciadFusion coverages on a map.

LuciadFusion is the geospatial data management product in the Luciad portfolio. LuciadFusion coverages are tile-based data structures, developed for optimal querying, visualization, and analysis of geospatial data. Such coverages can be stored in LuciadFusion Tile Stores.

LuciadLightspeed Advanced and LuciadLightspeed Pro components

Aviation Standards

This component is a LuciadFusion Pro optional component.

It offers extensive modeling and ICAO-compliant visualization of aeronautical data, in a format-independent way. All relevant domain objects are provided, such as airspaces, routes, procedures, aerodromes, and navaids.

Supported formats: AIXM (3.3, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.1), ARINC 424, DAFIF(T).

Database Connectors

This component is a LuciadFusion Advanced optional component and a LuciadFusion Pro component.

It provides support for seamlessly integrating geospatial databases into applications. This integration includes data retrieval, modeling, and persistence into the database.

Supported database formats

IBM DB2, Informix Geodetic and Spatial Datablade, OGC GeoPackage, Oracle Locator and Oracle Spatial, PostGIS (PostgreSQL spatial database extension), SAP HANA (Beta), Microsoft SQLServer, SQLite

Defense Standards

This component is a LuciadFusion Pro optional component.

It bundles a set of connectors to formats described by Defense Standards. Each data connector adds support for an additional format.

The following connectors are included: VPF, MGCP, NITF/NSIF, ASRP/USRP/ADRG, BCI, and CADRG/CIB.

Advanced GIS Engine

This component is a LuciadFusion Advanced and Pro component.

It allows 2D topological calculations on any supported geometry. Those calculations include both binary topology checks and constructive geometry operations (union, difference, intersection). Cartesian, spherical, ellipsoidal, and rhumb shape implementations are included.

Graph and Routing Engine

This component is a LuciadFusion Advanced and Pro optional component.

It offers routing and tracing capabilities, based on any network data, independent of the data format/source. It also includes cross-country routing, which can be applied in the absence of any road network information.

When network information is present, cost functions can be flexibly applied to edges and turns. Cost definitions can be based on any available information. Elements like slope, distance, vegetation or even weather conditions or communication coverage can be taken into account via custom cost functions. Large networks can be partitioned for efficient large-scale routing.

In addition, the GDF data connector adds support for the GDF format for exchanging road network information.

Maritime Standards

This component is a LuciadFusion Pro optional component.

It offers high-performance support for S-57 and UKHO AML data with correct visualization on ECDIS systems according to the S-52 standard.

The maritime charts can be served via OGC-compliant services.

The API offers much flexibility in filtering the information to be displayed, and supports all required display modes, such as day, night, and dawn.

Radar Connectors

This component is a LuciadFusion Pro optional component.

Connect to and serve radar data captured in ASTERIX and ASDI formats.

Supported formats: Eurocontrol ASTERIX categories 1, 8, 10, 11, 21, 30, 48, 62, 240 and 244, and ASDI.

Real-time Engine

This component is a LuciadFusion Advanced and Pro component.

It supports visualization and replay of radar data, including radar video (Asterix Category 240). For real-time track feeds, a dynamic, continuous label decluttering algorithm is available.

Advanced Raster Connectors

This component is a LuciadFusion Advanced and Pro component.

It bundles a set of raster data connectors. Each of the connectors adds support for an additional format to the product.

The following formats are included:

  • ECW, GeoPDF, GeoSPOT, MrSID, Spot DIMAP, Swiss DHM.

  • GDAL-supported formats including:

    • ARC/Info Binary Grid(AIG), BSB Nautical Chart Format, ARC/Info Export E00 GRID, ENVI HDR Labelled Raster, ERDAS Imagine, ERDAS Imagine Raw, ILWIS Raster Map, Intergraph Raster, PCI Geomatics database File, PCRaster, Sentinel 1 SAR SAFE, Sentinel 2, SAR CEOS, SRTM HGT, GDAL Virtual, ASCII Gridded XYZ.

  • 360° panoramic imagery formats:

    • E57

    • Leica Pegasus

S-63

This component is a LuciadFusion Pro optional component.

It extends the Maritime Standards component with support for encrypted S-63 data on ECDIS systems. As a certified IHO OEM, Luciad can guide you not only with decryption, decoding, visualization, and services, but also with information about S-63 data ordering and licensing.

Defense Symbology

This component is a LuciadFusion Pro optional component.

It allows you to visualize tactical situations and plans compliant with various military symbology standards. MS2525B/C/D and APP-6A/B/C/D are supported, both for the visualization of given data and for creation/editing. A rich API allows for customization and configuration where needed. The default implementation is fully compliant.

In addition, the NVG data connector adds support for the NVG format for exchanging tactical plans. Using an extensive domain model, data can be read, visualized, edited, and written again.

Terrain Analysis Engine

This component is a LuciadFusion Advanced and Pro optional component.

It offers analysis capabilities that can be applied to any elevation data, independent of the data format/source.

  • Explore elevation data by reading out elevation for selected locations, calculating terrain cross-sections, and marking peaks and low points.

  • Support the operator by applying hypsometrical calculation layers emphasizing slope, slope direction, ridges and valleys, and so on.

  • Calculate visual and sensor coverage with Line-of-Sight calculations and view-shed analysis.

The API offers full control over propagation and visualization, and includes hardware acceleration for Line-of-Sight calculations.

Moreover, the engine can use hardware acceleration for multi-core servers or GPU-accelerated servers supporting OpenCL to reach unparalleled performance for both calculations and visualization.

Weather and Environment Standards

This component is a LuciadFusion Advanced and Pro optional component.

Integrate environmental data and preserve dimensional information when serving straight from the source or pre-tiling and fusing this data.

Supported formats: NetCDF ISC, GRIB V1/V2 weather data (WMO/ICAO Bulletin).

Tiling Engine

This component is a LuciadFusion Essential component.

The Tiling Engine allows you to process raw data into a hierarchical, tile-based structure. This optimizes access to the data, for the purpose of querying, visualization, and analysis. Using the Tiling Engine, you benefit from fast processing and efficient storage.

Infrastructure Standards

This component is a LuciadFusion Pro optional component.

It bundles connectors for CAD (DWG/DXF/DGN) and BIM (IFC/Hexagon Binz/Revit) formats. The DWG data connector adds support for the AutoCAD DWG/DXF format, the DGN data connector for the Bentley Microstation DGN format. With the BIM connectors you can process these formats into OGC 3D Tiles data sets and features models.

It also includes a 3D Tiles Processing Engine for the conversion of 3D meshes (in OBJ format) to OGC 3D Tiles data sets.

  • Import and visualize your computer-aided designs and drafts into LuciadLightspeed to see your design in context.

  • Prepare your 3D meshes for streaming via conversion of OBJ to OGC 3D tiles

  • Formats: Autocad DWG/DXF, Microstation DGN, Hexagon Binz

Guidelines for upgrading from a component version of LuciadLightspeed to a tiered LuciadLightspeed version

This section helps users of a component-based LuciadLightspeed version older than V2017 with their upgrade to a tiered LuciadLightspeed version.

As always, you can consult the release notes for improvements, fixes and upgrade considerations. In addition, we would like to draw your attention to the following:

Simplified distribution

After downloading the product, you will find only one zip file that conveniently bundles all components you have access to within your tier. Inside the .zip file, you will retrieve the directory structure that you are familiar with from previous LuciadLightspeed releases.

In addition, there will be one zip file per option that you are licensed to. The zip files for the options have names similar to the option names.

New tier components

Starting with LuciadLightspeed V2017.0, the LuciadLightspeed components have been re-distributed into LuciadLightspeed tiers. Even if you did not have access to these components before, you can now benefit from the rich set of capabilities that they add.

For more information about those components, see the Luciad Developer Platform as well as the developer documentation for all components.

New set of LuciadLightspeed Essential components

The following LuciadLightspeed components are included by default into the LuciadLightspeed Essential tier:

Lucy, OGC Web Client Suite, LuciadFusion Client, Bing Maps, SQLite/OGC GeoPackage, LIDAR decoder and KML decoder.

New set of LuciadLightspeed Advanced components

The following LuciadLightspeed components are included by default into LuciadLightspeed Advanced:

Lucy, OGC Web Client Suite, LuciadFusion Client, Bing Maps, SQLite/OGC GeoPackage, LIDAR decoder, KML decoder, Geometry Calculations, Real-Time and decoders for ECW, GeoPDF, GeoSPOT (spatiocartes), MrSID, Spot DIMAP, Swiss DHM, and finally the GDAL Connector.

Furthermore, the Options may offer you a set of components as well. In the next table, we provide the mapping between LuciadLightspeed Options and LuciadLightspeed components.

Table 2. Mapping of Advanced options
Advanced Option Components

Database Connectors

DB2 Spatial and Geodetic Extender, Informix Spatial Datablade, Informix Geodetic Datablade, Oracle Locator, Oracle Spatial, PostgreSQL, SAP HANA Database Connector (beta) and Microsoft SQL Server Database Connector

Terrain Analysis Engine

Terrain Elevation Analysis (TEA)

Weather & Environment Standards

NetCDF ISC, GRIB V1/V2, and BUFR SIGWX weather data

Graph & Routing Engine

Networking & Route planning and GDF

New set of LuciadLightspeed Pro components

The following LuciadLightspeed components are included by default into LuciadLightspeed Pro:

  • Lucy, OGC Web Client Suite, LuciadFusion Client, Bing Maps, SQLite/OGC GeoPackage, LIDAR decoder, KML decoder, Geometry Calculations, Real-Time, Tiling Engine.

  • Decoders for ECW, GeoPDF, GeoSPOT (spatiocartes), MrSID, Spot DIMAP, Swiss DHM, and finally the GDAL Connector.

  • Database connectors for DB2 Spatial and Geodetic Extender, Informix Spatial Datablade, Informix Geodetic Datablade, Oracle Locator, Oracle Spatial, PostgreSQL, SAP HANA Database Connector (beta) and Microsoft SQL Server Database Connector.

Furthermore, the Options may offer you a set of components as well. In the next table, we provide the mapping between LuciadLightspeed Options and LuciadLightspeed components.

Table 3. Mapping of Pro options
Pro Option Components

Terrain Analysis Engine

Terrain Elevation Analysis (TEA)

Weather & Environment Standards

NetCDF ISC, GRIB V1/V2, and BUFR SIGWX weather data

Graph & Routing Engine

Networking & Route planning and GDF

Infrastructure Standards

AutoCAD DWG and DXF, Microstation DGN, Hexagon Binz, IFC, Autodesk Revit

Radar Connectors

Eurocontrol Asterix and ASDI/ETMS

Aviation Standards

AIS, AIXM, ARINC 424 and DAFIF & DAFIFT

Defense Standards

VPF, NITF including JPEG 2000 decoder/NSIF, ASRP/USRP/ADRG, BCI decoder and CADRG/CIB (Note that CADRG is now optional)

Defense Symbology

MS (APP-6A/APP-6B/MS2525b/MS2525c) and NVG ISC

Maritime Standards

ECDIS

S-63

S-63