Experimental Development of Web Application for Mapping Point Cloud Using WebGL

Scientists engaged in geology often come in contact with point data indicating the location like outcrops, borings and so on, and expand them on a web based 2D-map to show the location in general. However, increasing the number of point data causes deterioration of the response speed of web application. In this study, I tried to make a web application for mapping a huge number of points with new approach by using WebGL, attempted to improve response speed to operations of application. I adopted "Point Cloud PNG (PCPNG)" as a format for delivering point data instead of a well-known format such as JSON, GeoJSON or binary vector tiles. As a result, I have successfully developed a web application with good responsiveness, therefore, my developed mechanism as well as its comparison with already existed web applications for mapping point cloud are herewith introduced.