Parallel Buffer Generation Algorithm for GIS

Abstract

A buffer generation algorithm that identifies areas of a given distance surrounding geographic features is one of the most frequently used functions in GIS. With the increase of scale and precision in geographic data, the efficiency of the buffer generation algorithm has been of great concern. This study presents a novel integrated solution consisting of a points-based, load-balanced method and a binary union tree method to accelerate the buffer generation. By comparing several parallel candidates, the experimental results show that our new parallel algorithm achieves greater performance and scalability, and its speed increases by 21 times with 32 processes.