Objectives  The discrete global grid system (DGGS) is a preferred solution in supporting the fusion processing of multi-source geospatial information. The research of hexagonal gird systems has raised wide academic concern. Compared with global grids, the requirements for regional-scale grid application are more extensive, which has been one of the important issues in current hexagonal DGGS research. It combines two adjacent triangle facets of an icosahedron into a logical quad structure, and based on this structure, an algorithm of generating the multi-aperture hexagonal grid systems with regional-scale is proposed.

  Methods  Firstly, the grid type is analyzed to establish a discrete integer coordinate system and the spatial location of the multi-aperture hexagonal grid cell is described. Secondly, the regional-scale is split based on the logical quad structure on the surface of the spherical icosahedron to create sub-areas. Thirdly, according to the boundary of the sub-area, an external minimum logical quad structure algorithm is designed to eliminate irrelevant cells on the logical quad structure. Finally, the minimum logical quad structure is traversed to generate a multi-aperture partial grid.

  Results and Conclusions  The comparative experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has the advantages of better flexibility and higher efficiency.The generated grid is used for the organization of raster data, which can significantly reduce the amount of data and has good application potential.