# Presentation: 333211

## Web-based Interaction with 3D Environmental Data Sets using Virtual Reality Modeling Language

- Nancy Soreide, NOAA/PMEL
- Christopher Moore, NOAA/JISAO
- Cathy Lascara, Old Dominion University
- Glen Wheless, Old Dominion University

*AMS/IIPS, January 11-15, 1999, Dallas, TX*

*Sponsored by NOAA’s HPCC program*

## Background

- Computational power is increasing
- Observational systems sample the environment more densely
- Environmental data and model outputs have become increasingly large
- Newly emerging Virtual Reality technologies allow us to view, analyze and **interact** with data in new ways

## Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)

**VRML is a file format which allows users to access, navigate, explore and interact with environmental data in 3D on the Web**
**VRML is scalable across platforms ranging from PCs to high-end workstations**
**Viewers or plug-ins are freely available for popular Web browsers, such as Netscape**

**FOR MORE INFO...**

- _[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml)_

## VRML Objects and Worlds

** ****VRML objects mimic the real environment**
**Examples: Contour slices, color-coded poly-filled contours, surfaces, vectors, bathymetry, topography**
**VRML Objects can be touched, rotated, animated**
**Users ****interact**** with the objects**
**A VRML World consists of VRML objects**
**Created by: **** **
**Inserting the VRML graphical objects into a Virtual World  **
**Specifying user interactions with the Virtual World**

## Project Objective

- Create Web-based interface that supports interactive visualization of oceanographic data
- Construct Virtual Worlds with oceanographic data
- Initial focus on data from NOAA’s El Niño/La Niña monitoring buoys in the Tropical Pacific
- Other datasets included as time and resources allow

**FOR MORE INFO...**

- _[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/visualization](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/visualization/visual.html)_

## 3D El Niño/La Niña VRML World

- Surface winds, Sea Surface Temperature, temperatures beneath the sea surface, dynamic topography, depth of the 20 C isotherm
- Surfaces or objects can be selected for display
- Visualization can be zoomed, rotated, animated

**FOR MORE INFO...**

- _[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml/)_

- 3D visualization of near-realtime data from El Niño/La Niña monitoring buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean

## 3D Fisheries-Oceanography Model Outputs

**Model bathymetry with sea surface height and temperature for May 15, 1997**** **
**Top surface is the sea surface height (without tides) colored by temperature at 10m depth - blue is cold, red is hot **
**Surface representing sea floor is colored by depth - red is shallow, blue is deeper**
**Spiky protrusions out of the sea surface are the Aleutian Island chain to the South (right), the Pribolof Islands to the North (left).  **

**FOR MORE INFO...**

- _[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/home/visualization/visual.html)_
- _[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml/sebscc/start_sebscc.html](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml/sebscc/start_sebscc.html)_

**  ****3D Virtual Ocean from a biological-physical oceanography regional model of the Southeast Bering Sea**
**From a viewpoint in the Bering Sea, looking towards the East**

## How VRML benefits the user

** ****Scientists and researchers**
**VRML lets the scientist touch the data, move into it, and see it from different viewpoints**
**Scientists affirm that use of VRML discloses features of their data and model outputs which were undiscovered with standard visualization techniques.**
**With VRML, a scientist can share these insights with colleagues**
**Widens audience for scientific data and information **
**Government administrators and decision makers**
**Educators and students**
**General public**

## What you will find at our Web site

**VRML objects and one or more Virtual Worlds created from TAO El Niño/La Niña data**
**VRML objects and/or Virtual Worlds from other NOAA/PMEL datasets**

**Web pages providing the methodology and technology used in creating VRML objects (e.g., toolkits available on-line)**
**White Paper documenting Lessons Learned in the creation of Virtual Worlds**
**Links to professional society meeting presentations of results**

- _[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml/)_

## Conclusions & Future Directions

**Virtual Reality helps the scientist and the lay person understand complex datasets and relationships**
**Web based Virtual Reality is widely accessible**

**Web based Virtual Reality can be shared**
**Including interactions between multiple users across networks**
**People sharing virtual worlds can see, talk, and interact with one another**
**e.g., multi-user VRML interaction**
**Faster network speeds will be achieved with Next Generation Internet (NGI), etc.**

- _[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml/)__[vrml](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vrml/)_

- Supported by NOAA/HPCC