Geodata are datasets that have a spatial, temporal and thematic aspect to describe phenomena and processes in time,
space and topic. Geodata, or geospatial data, are nowadays collected and produced with various sensors and techniques
which provide for images, 3D point clouds, thematic maps, etc. Geodata are used in many Geosciences and for various
applications such as urban planning, territorial management, damage assessment, environmental monitoring, 3D city
modelling, renewable energy assessment, land registry, heritage documentation, etc. Despite a growing market, a large
number of applications, a vast series of publications and various acquisition and processing techniques, there are still many
unresolved research questions on the automation of processing procedures, and on how to make them more reliable,
powerful and scale-invariant. Moreover, an efficient availability, access and use of geospatial data are often missing. This
hinders the growth of new applications and societal welfares. Progress in provision of efficiently and effectively derived 3D
geospatial information is thus the key to more comprehensive, faster and better exploitation of geodata, for the benefit of
individuals and societies. Last but not least, new occupations are emerging in the geospatial industry which requires capacity
building for developing new applications of geospatial technologies. The VOLTA project, through secondments, training
activities and networking, will facilitate knowledge exchange and career progresses in the geospatial field. The project will
develop innovative solutions to (i) automatically provide metric information from images, (ii) fuse heterogeneous data coming
from various sensors, (iii) segment 2D and 3D geospatial data and (iv) process large geospatial datasets in the Cloud. The
project will share and exploit the complementary expertise of the partners to produce and transfer new skills and innovative
solutions for mapping agencies and geospatial companies.
