# Billion Object Platform V2.0 ## expand\_more The Billion Object Platform (BOP) V2 is a cloud-based visualization tool powered by HEAVY.AI (a GPU database that was invented at the CGA), which provides a robust big data exploration platform, with API access, for geospatial data. The BOP's primary aim is to facilitate interactive visualization and analysis of large, spatio-temporal datasets, addressing the challenges that traditional geospatial tools face with datasets containing more than a few million features. By overcoming these limitations, BOP reduces barriers for scholars and researchers seeking to work with extensive geospatial data. BOP V2 builds on the original [Billion Object Platform](https://gis.harvard.edu/billion-object-platform-bop) developed through a Sloan-funded collaboration between CGA and IQSS to enable visualization of big spatial data within Dataverse. The project invented [2d faceting](https://solr.apache.org/guide/solr/latest/query-guide/spatial-search.html#heatmap-faceting), a new type of big data visualization conceived by Ben Lewis and David Smiley in 2014. **Use Cases/Publications:** - Corti, P., Lewis B., Kralidis, A., Mwenda, N. 2016. Implementing an open source spatio-temporal search platform for Spatial Data Infrastructures. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2238v7 - Corti, P., Lewis, [B](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8rY_X3MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra). (2017) *Making temporal search more central in spatial data infrastructures* Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Volume IV-4/W2. - Kakkar, D., Lewis, B., Smiley, D., & Nunez, A. (2017). *The Billion Object Platform (BOP): A system to lower barriers to support big, streaming, spatio-temporal data sources*. OSGeo Journal, 17(1), 113–122. - Jain, D., Blossom, J., Wang, H. [Digitalizing Journalist Paul Salopek’s decade-long walk of 24,000-mile odyssey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uJuulpCWNk). National Geographic Case Study, 2024. - Jain, D., Billion Object Platform, Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), SC '22. See also:- [ Basic ](/page-type/basic)