Applications Of The Vola Format For 3d Data Knowledge Discovery.

VOLA is a compact data structure that unifies computer vision and 3D rendering and allows for the rapid calculation of connected components, per-voxel census/accounting, CNN inference, path planning and obstacle avoidance. Using a hierarchical bit array format allows it to run efficiently on embedded systems and maximize the level of data compression. The proposed format allows massive scale volumetric data to be used in embedded applications where it would be inconceivable to utilize point-clouds due to memory constraints. Furthermore, geographical and qualitative data is embedded in the file structure to allow it to be used in place of standard point cloud formats. This work examines the reduction in file size when encoding 3D data using the VOLA format and finds that it is an order of magnitude smaller than the current binary standard for point cloud data.