Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Efficient 3D movement-based kernel density estimator and application to wildlife ecology

January 1, 2014

We describe an efficient implementation of a 3D movement-based kernel density estimator for determining animal space use from discrete GPS measurements. This new method provides more accurate results, particularly for species that make large excursions in the vertical dimension. The downside of this approach is that it is much more computationally expensive than simpler, lower-dimensional models. Through a combination of code restructuring, parallelization and performance optimization, we were able to reduce the time to solution by up to a factor of 1000x, thereby greatly improving the applicability of the method.

Publication Year 2014
Title Efficient 3D movement-based kernel density estimator and application to wildlife ecology
DOI 10.1145/2616498.2616522
Authors Jeff Tracey-PR, James K. Sheppard, Glenn K. Lockwood, Amit Chourasia, Mahidhar Tatineni, Robert N. Fisher, Robert S. Sinkovits
Publication Type Conference Paper
Publication Subtype Conference Paper
Index ID 70150407
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization Western Ecological Research Center