A Discrete Global Grid System assigns identifiers to cells covering the Earth, with a hierarchy of finer cells. Robert Gibb, Alexander Raichev and Michael Speth developed rHEALPix at Manaaki Whenua. Gibb contributed to the OGC DGGS specifications and edited the 2021 Part 1 revision associated with ISO 19170-1:2021.
Manaaki Whenua also applied DGGS methods to land-use mapping. Richard Law’s 2023 presentation documents an H3-based workflow combining raster and vector sources, followed by a paper with James Ardo. H3 is a different grid implementation from rHEALPix. The research, standards and application each form a part of the institute’s contribution to grid-based spatial information.
Development and use
A Discrete Global Grid System assigns identifiers to cells covering the Earth, with a hierarchy of finer cells. Robert Gibb, Alexander Raichev and Michael Speth developed rHEALPix at Manaaki Whenua. Gibb contributed to the OGC DGGS specifications and edited the 2021 Part 1 revision associated with ISO 19170-1:2021.
Manaaki Whenua also applied DGGS methods to land-use mapping. Richard Law’s 2023 presentation documents an H3-based workflow combining raster and vector sources, followed by a paper with James Ardo. H3 is a different grid implementation from rHEALPix. The research, standards and application each form a part of the institute’s contribution to grid-based spatial information.
Sources and further reading · 6
- Gibb, Raichev and Speth, The rHEALPix Discrete Global Grid System, Landcare Research DataStore, deposited 2016, DOI 10.7931/J2D21VHM
- OGC Abstract Specification Topic 21, Discrete Global Grid Systems, version 1.0, 1 August 2017
- Robert Gibb (editor), OGC Topic 21, DGGS Part 1, version 2.0, 23 September 2021, 20-040r3
- ISO/TC 211, ISO 19170-1:2021: DGGS core reference system, operations and equal-area Earth reference system
- Richard Law, Land-use mapping with a Discrete Global Grid System, FOSS4G SotM Oceania, 17 October 2023: H3 implementation
- Richard M. Law and James Ardo, Using a discrete global grid system for a scalable, interoperable, and reproducible system of land-use mapping, Big Earth Data 9(1), 2025, DOI 10.1080/20964471.2024.2429847