HR: 0800h
AN: IN31B-0336    [Abstracts]
TI: Zaidaco: A tool for interactive display of time-varying global geophysical fields
AU: * Block, S E
EM: sblock@cfa.harvard.edu
AF: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS 42, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
AU: Davis, J L
EM: jdavis@cfa.harvard.edu
AF: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS 42, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
AU: Pfister, H
EM: pfister@seas.harvard.edu
AF: Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science, Pierce Hall 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
AU: Hill, E M
EM: ehill@cfa.harvard.edu
AF: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS 42, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
AU: Tamisiea, M E
EM: mtam@pol.ac.uk
AF: Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Joseph Proudman Building 6 Brownlow Street, Liverpool, L3 5DA, United Kingdom
AB: NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), consisting of more than 25 satellite missions launched since 1999, observes and measures our planet daily. New ways to explore, analyze, and visualize temporal variation in these data fields could be of great benefit. We have developed a desktop computer graphics application that Earth scientists can use to explore and visualize global dynamic phenomena (for example, changes in the Earth's gravity field or changes in sea surface temperature) by manipulating the representation of the data on a 3D spherical global map. This interactive tool accepts multiple data files in plain text format of a field at different points in time. The tool allows the user to dynamically animate the temporal changes to the field, manipulate the viewing angle in three dimensions, zoom in on a region, add/remove features such as coastline data, vary the relative height scale, change the color scale, etc. These interactive features may be applied while viewing an animation. Innovations in displaying temporal variations include representing field values as changes to the shape of the Earth, using key frame animation to create intermediate images to smooth the animation between measured fields, allowing the user to control the timer speed and number of interpolated frames while viewing an animation, and including an animated epoch scale. The application offers a unique way to view global geophysical fields as they vary over time and can be used to illuminate the underlying processes that cause changes, highlight areas of interest, and communicate results.
DE: 0530 Data presentation and visualization
DE: 0599 General or miscellaneous
SC: Earth and Space Science Informatics [IN]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting