Low-cost interactive stereo visualization on the desktop

Al Hermann and Christopher Moore
NOAA/PMEL/OCRD

Data visualization at PMEL takes advantage of advances in video card technology driven largely by the video game industry. Low cost video cards for the PC allow interactive stereo viewing of both in-situ and model data using VRML or software such as Vis5D. We have found that the Exceed Xterm software takes advantage of local hardware video acceleration by interpreting OpenGL commands issued by a graphics server. Now a single high-end graphics machine, like our SGI Onyx2 can serve Vis5D over a local area network to several users, with rendering taking place on the desktop PC. A demonstration using the SGI driving the ImmersaDesk will show model output from the Regional Ocean Model System (ROMS). This visualization, simulating regions in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, will run on a PC over a local area network and show how free software like Vis5D and "off the shelf" video cards can produce interactive, stereo 3-D animations. The user can explore data output by looking at contour plots, isosurfaces, vector plots, or "seeding" an evolving velocity field with lagrangian drifters. These animations can also be converted to VRML for publishing of pertinent results and interesting findings on the internet.

BIO - Al Hermann Al works with other physical oceanographers and biologists on models of circulation, plankton and fish dynamics in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, as part of the Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI), the Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity (SEBSCC) program, and the Northeast Pacific GLOBEC program. Other recent work centers on low-cost stereo virtual reality techniques.

BIO - Christopher Moore Christopher started his grad school experience off doing numerical modeling and fluid dynamics experiments in the GFD Lab at the University of Washington. In June of '96 he finished a Master's degree in physical oceanography with Dr. Barbara Hickey. He focused on tides in Astoria canyon, located just off the southern Washington coast, and did some field work in the area. He also has experience at sea, including research cruises in the Chukchi Sea (for Dr. Knut Aagaard studying Arctic Ocean circulation), the coastal North Pacific (studying the newly-formed Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary), and Exuma Sound, The Bahamas. The latter two were for his advisor, Dr. Hickey. Currently, Christopher is working for the University of Washington out at the Western Regional Center of NOAA (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration). He is doing data analysis and visualization techniques for oceanography. His latest creations are in VRML.... and he just got his Research Certification in NITROX SCUBA diving. He occasionally dives in Puget Sound, Willapa Bay, Coos Bay, and the Bahamas setting and maintaining oceanographic instrumentation for the UW Coastal Studies Group. He also volunteers for a non-profit educational organization called the Ocean Inquiry Project (OIP). He takes students out to experience oceanography first-hand.

Science Center Exhibit/Demo Tuesday - 3:10 - 4:00 P.M. Other demo times will be posted at the exhibit.