Glossary

antialiasing is a software technique for diminishing jaggies - stairstep-like lines that should be smooth. Jaggies occur because the output device, the monitor or printer, does not have a high enough resolution to represent a smooth line. Antialiasing reduces the prominence of jaggies by surrounding the stairsteps with intermediate shades of gray (for gray-scaling devices) or color (for color devices). Although this reduces the jagged appearance of the lines, it also makes them fuzzier

Allied Procedural Publication 6 is a NATO standard for military map marking symbols. It provides common operational symbology along with details on their display and plotting to ensure the compatibility, and to the greatest extent possible, the interoperability of NATO Land Component Command, Control, Communications, Computer, and Intelligence (C4I) systems, development, operations, and training

An azimuth is defined as a horizontal angle measured clockwise from a north base line. This north base line could be true north, magnetic north, or grid north. The azimuth is the most common military method to express direction. When using an azimuth, the point from which the azimuth originates is the center of an imaginary circle . This circle is divided into 360 degrees or 6400 mils . NORTH IS 0/360 AZIMUTH

Curved lines (splines) defined by mathematical formulas. Bézier curves are defined by control points. The Quadratic Bézier Curve: is defined by three control points. The Cubic Bézier Curve is defined by four control points. The control points influence the shape of the curve. The first and last control points are the endpoints of the curve, while the intermediate control points determine the curvature.

A representation, consisting of rows and columns of dots, of a graphics image in computer memory. Bit-mapped graphics are often referred to as raster graphics. The other method for representing images is known as vector graphics or object-oriented graphics. With vector graphics, images are represented as mathematical formulas that define all the shapes in the image

Represents an axis-aligned bounding box

An invisible box surrounding a graphical object and determining its size. The minimum bounding box for a point set in N dimensions is the box with the smallest measure (area, volume, or hypervolume in higher dimensions) within which all the points lie

Cartesian coordinates provide a method of rendering graphs and indicating the positions of points on a two-dimensional (2D) surface or in three-dimensional (3D) space. The Cartesian plane consists of two perpendicular axes that cross at a central point called the origin. Positions or coordinates are determined according to the east/west and north/south displacements from the origin. The east/west axis is often called the x axis, and the north/south axis is called the y axis. For this reason, the Cartesian plane is also known as the xy -plane. Cartesian three-space, also called xyz -space, has a third axis, oriented at right angles to the xy -plane. This axis, usually called the z axis, passes through the origin of the xy -plane

also called contextual, shortcut, and popup or pop-up menu. A menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction. A context menu offers a limited set of choices that are available in the current state, or context, of the operating system or application. Usually the available choices are actions related to the selected object

application component that handles user interaction

currying is a technique used frequently in JavaScript to decompose a function that takes a number of arguments into one or more functions that takes fewer arguments. The technique was named after mathematician Haskell Curry.

A separate data element that is part of a business domain and that is contained in a model

In geodesy, a reference ellipsoid is a mathematically-defined surface that approximates the geoid, the truer figure of the earth, or other planetary body. Because of their relative simplicity, reference ellipsoids are used as a preferred surface on which geodetic network computations are performed and point coordinates such as latitude, longitude, and elevation are defined

The EPSG geodetic parameter dataset is a structured repository of data required to identify coordinates through a coordinate reference system (CRS) definition, and to define transformations and conversions that allow coordinates to be changed from one CRS to another CRS. The EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset is maintained by the Geodesy Subcommittee of OGP

Ecmascript 6 (ES6) the JavaScript language specification with module loading that specifies how to organize code into modules

Geographical drawing component provided by LuciadRIA. It allows you to draw shapes on a geographical canvas, and define the styling of those shapes

also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal motion, tides, and polar motion. For this they design global and national control networks, using space and terrestrial techniques while relying on datums and coordinate systems

A geodetic datum is a reference from which measurements are made. In surveying and geodesy, a datum is a set of reference points on the earth’s surface against which position measurements are made, and (often) an associated model of the shape of the earth (reference ellipsoid) to define a geographic coordinate system. Horizontal datums are used for describing a point on the earth’s surface, in latitude and longitude or another coordinate system. Vertical datums measure elevations or depths

Essentially the figure of the earth abstracted from its topographical features. It is an idealized equilibrium surface of sea water, the mean sea level surface in the absence of currents, air pressure variations and so forth, and continued under the continental masses

Global Positioning System

Graphics Processing Unit

Integrated Development Environment

Insert an immediate item into a series of items by estimating or calculating it from surrounding known values

(JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language. JSON is a text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages. These properties make JSON a good data interchange language

Container used to visually represent model data in a view

is an XML-based file format for storing and visualizing geographic data in Earth browsers. The file format was originally developed by Keyhole Inc. for use with their Earth Viewer application, which is currently known as Google Earth

The Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) is a geocoordinate standard used by NATO. The MGRS is derived from the UTM and UPS grid systems, but uses a different labeling convention. The MGRS is used for the entire earth

A container for domain objects

MIL-STD-2525 is a common warfighting symbology, and an America equivalent standard of APP6

a multiresolution object can be described at different levels of resolution

A view of an object system at a particular point in time. Whereas a normal data model such as a UML class diagram details the relationships between classes, the object graph relates their instances

Open Computing Language is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors. OpenCL includes a language (based on C99) for writing kernels (functions that execute on OpenCL devices), plus APIs that are used to define and then control the platforms. OpenCL provides parallel computing using task-based and data-based parallelism. OpenCL gives any application access to the graphics processing unit for non-graphical computing. Thus, OpenCL extends the power of the Graphics Processing Unit beyond graphics (general-purpose computing on graphics processing units)

A standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform set of rules for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. It is used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple building blocks and is widely used in engineering, virtual reality, scientific visualization, information visualization, and flight simulation

Moving the map by clicking or touching it and dragging it

Continuous line composed of one or more line segments

Unprocessed. The term refers to data that is passed along to an I/O device without being interpreted

Red Green Blue Alpha. RGBA is a use of the RGB color model, with extra information. The color is RGB, and may belong to any RGB color space, but an integral alpha value enables alpha blending and alpha compositing. The alpha channel is normally used as an opacity channel

A geometrical object with a bounding box and a focus (or center) point

Snapping layer objects into position pulls the objects to one another or to ruler subdivisions, grid lines, guides, or guide points so that you can control the placement and alignment of the objects

SpatiaLite is a small-sized SQLite extension. It allows the SQLite DBMS to load, store and manipulate spatial data, such as geographic data, geospatial and geometry data. SpatiaLite implements spatial extensions following the specification of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). A DBMS that supports spatial data offers an SQL environment that has been extended with a set of geometry types. A geometry-valued SQL column is implemented as a column that has a geometry type. The OGC specification describe a set of SQL geometry types, as well as functions on those types to create and analyze geometry values

SQLite is an in-process library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. The code for SQLite is in the public domain and is thus free for use for any purpose, commercial or private. SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. Unlike most other SQL databases, it does not have a separate server process. SQLite reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file. The database file format is cross-platform. SQLite is a compact library. With all features enabled, the library size can be less than 300KiB, depending on compiler optimization settings. If optional features are omitted, the size of the SQLite library can be reduced below 180KiB

The Universal Polar Stereographic (UPS) grid system is similar to the UTM grid system, except that only two grid zones are used in each polar region: Y and Z in the north polar region, and A and B in the south polar region

The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) geographic coordinate system is a grid-based method of specifying locations on the surface of the earth that is a practical application of a 2-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. It was developed by the United States Army. The UTM system divides the surface of the earth between 80°S and 84°N latitude into 60 zones, each 6° of longitude in width, and centered over a meridian of longitude

A representation of a geometrical shape and its attributes

a vertex (plural vertices) is a special kind of point that describes the corners or intersections of geometric shapes. Vertices are commonly used in computer graphics to define the corners of surfaces (typically triangles) in 3D models, where each such point is given as a vector

Visual representation of model data

The World Geodetic System is a standard for use in cartography, geodesy, and navigation. It comprises a standard coordinate frame for the earth, a standard spheroidal reference surface (the datum or reference ellipsoid) for raw altitude data, and a gravitational equipotential surface (the geoid) that defines the nominal sea level. The latest revision is WGS 84 (dating from 1984 and last revised in 2004), which was valid up to about 2010. WGS 84 is the reference coordinate system used by the Global Positioning System

A set of software instructions that is used primarily to calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility. Shaders are used to program the graphics processing unit (GPU) programmable rendering pipeline, which has mostly superseded the fixed-function pipeline that allowed only common geometry transformation and pixel-shading functions. With shaders, customized effects can be used