Azavea wins $150k NSF grant to develop GIS speed processors

In a world in which technology is being chased into the clouds, Azavea‘s calling card is still local.
The geospatial analysis work from the Callowhill software development firm formerly known as Avencia requires so much time, memory and processing power that its application are tied to workstations, despite trends in recent years for companies to become more web based.
So Azavea and its founder Robert Cheetham are working for a change that could impact the field and its implications for geolocation, mapping and the like. Armed with a $150,000 National Science Foundation grant, Azavea will begin testing the feasibility of using graphics processing units, a type of specialized processor more often implemented for rendering complex video game graphics at increasing rates. The aim will be to substantially increase the performance of many GIS software operations.
That means the development and implementation of projects that rely on GIS functions can be improved, like its noted Walkshed project.
Read more about the company’s grant here.