Patent ID: 8190585

Claim:
A method for providing geospatial data to a plurality of applications comprising: populating a voxel database with geospatial information specific to a real-world volumetric space, the voxel database representing a volumetric storage space comprising a set of unique volumetric storage units called voxels, wherein data elements are stored to specific ones of the voxels, wherein a spatial position of the data elements within the volumetric storage space is defined at least in part by which of the voxels the data elements are stored; receiving information requests having different formats for different applications; for each information request: identifying a volumetric sub-region of the volumetric storage space for the information request; receiving a set of data elements from the voxel database for the volumetric sub-region, where the set of data elements satisfy the information request; detecting a set of objects contained in the volumetric sub-region and detailed in raster format within the data elements, wherein the set of objects are not specifically delineated as discrete objects within the voxel database, wherein a spatial position of each of the set of objects is determined based at least in part upon spatial information of applicable ones of the voxels; and producing a response data set comprising the set of objects and the spatial position of each object in the set of objects, wherein the response data set is produced in the one of the different formats appropriate for the one of the different applications for which the information request was issued, wherein the response data set comprises geospatially correlated information needed by one of the different applications to represent a simulation space within a user interface of that one of the different applications, wherein the simulation space corresponds to a volume of the real-world volumetric space that is associated with the volumetric sub-region of the volumetric storage space.