The Earth is immense, and abundant with interesting information. Recent advancements in geospatial sensors (e.g. satellites, smart phones, meteorological instruments, and LIDAR) have resulted in the development of technologies capable of collecting large and dynamic geospatial data. As a result, we are experiencing an explosion in the volume and variability of geospatial data, and yet many in public remain unaware of or unable to access this wealth of data to make informed decisions regarding our planet. To foster a strong understanding of the Earth, we may offer a digital model of the Earth (a Digital Earth) such that any region may be selected and important information related to that area rapidly retrieved, analyzed, and visualized. The selected area can be small (e.g. a hole in a golf course), large (e.g. an underground reservoir), or huge (e.g. the atmosphere above polar regions). Such a framework will help the public at large to make decisions about the Earth and the issues affecting it.

To create Digital Earth, a geometric modeling approach has emerged called the Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS). A DGGS is a reference system that discretizes the Earth into a series of highly regular cells, each of which can be assigned data pertaining to the volume or area represented by the cell. Various Indexing techniques can be used to uniquely identify the cells. To support multiple spatial resolutions, cells are hierarchically subdivided using simple refinements.

There have been recent developments on different aspects of various global grids that may be used to create practical Digital Earth systems. Some of these achievements including grid conversions, volumetric 3D DGGS and multi-attribute visualization for DGGS are discussed.