Patent US 9,268,777

Systems and techniques for directing data collection. Upon an initial data collection, the uncertainty of all or of a portion or portions of the collected data is evaluated. The collected data may be associated with a region, with portions of the collected data associated with subregions. Further data collection, including changes to or refinement of collection techniques, is undertaken based on evaluations of the uncertainty. Further data collection may be undertaken only for portions of the data for which uncertainty exceeds a threshold. Uncertainty evaluation may be performed at least in part using a model. The model may be an initial hypothesis model, and the model may be optimized as further data is collected, and the optimized model may be used to guide further data collection techniques, with iterations of data collection and model optimization being carried out concurrently.