Rendering and managing spherical data with sphere quadtrees

The sphere quadtree (SQT), which is based on the recursive subdivision of spherical triangles obtained by projecting the faces of an icosahedron onto a sphere, is discussed. Most databases for spherically distributed data are not structured in a manner consistent with their geometry. As a result, such databases possess undesirable artifacts, including the introduction of tears in the data when they are mapped onto a flat file system. Furthermore, it is difficult to make queries about the topological relationship among the data components without performing real arithmetic. The SQT eliminates some of these problems. The SQT allows the representation of data at multiple levels and arbitrary resolution. Efficient search strategies can be implemented for the selection of data to be rendered or analyzed by a specific technique. Geometric and topological consistency with the data are maintained