VisCMD Visualizing Cloud Modeling Data Quanzhen Geng & Jing Li (Master of Software Systems Program) March 17, 2003 CPSC-533C Information Visualization Term-project Mid-term Report

Overview and Background Cloud Model: Resolution: 256x256x90 (25m) in North-South (6375m), West-East(6375m), and Altitude (2225m) directions. Output Data: -- Data amount for each time-step (1 min): [256x256x90 real-numbers/variable ] x4 (bytes/real-Number) x 12variables ~270MB -- Time-steps for each simulation: (5 days)x(24x60min/day)x(1step/min)=7200 steps -- Total Data Amount for each Simulation: (270MB/step)x7200steps ~1898GB~1.85TB

What Scientists Want for Data Visualization ? Scientists want Visualization Software that is: ready to use, no need to program, and specifically designed for their purpose. What we have Current 3D Visualization Libraries: VTK, Vis5D, VisAD etc. need scientists to do a lot of programming

Goals of VisCMD To develop a software that can be used specifically for visualizing large cloud modeling datasets in three dimensions and visualizing the cloud properties (multi-variables) in parallel coordinates.

Objectives Achieve 3 ~ 4 of the following objectives: (1) General 3D display of the cloud body. (2) Parallel coordinates visualization of cloud data (3) Zoom a mouse-selected region (4) Make slices of the cloud and see the inside properties (temperature, humidity etc) of it (5) Display the animation of the cloud development in a time period

Implementation Approach (1) Software Tools: VisAD – A visualization library written in pure Java (2) Programming Language: Java (3) Platform: Windows 2000

Implementation: Class Structures VisCMD VisCMDGUIManager VisCMDDataReader VisCMDManager VisCMDDisplayVisCMDController VisCMDSliceVisCMDHandleVisCMDSlicerVisCMDVolumRender

Screen shot 01 Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Screen shot 02 3D-Cloud Display: Looking from above

Screen shot 03 3D-Cloud Display: Looking from one side

Screen shot 04 3D-Cloud Display: Zoom-out

Screen shot 05 3D-Cloud Display: Zoom-in

Screen shot 06 3D-Cloud Display: Dynamic Slicing 3D-clouds with a slicer and a handle A sliced piece of clouds

Screen shot 07 3D-Cloud Property Display: Total Water Vapor Volume Rendering and Dynamic Slicing Total water vapor volume rendering, a slicer and a handle A sliced cross-section of total water vapor

Screen shot 08 3D-Cloud Property Display: Total Water Vapor A slice in 3D-space

Summary We have finished the following things: Data interface: read and process model output data to feed to VisAD for 3D-rendering A simple GUI: handle user input and control of the 3D-rendering 3D-display: volume rendering of Cloud Modeling Data Dynamic slicing: dynamic slicing of the 3D-volume rendering

Future Works Refine the present GUI --Add FileChooser, VariableSelector, DataInfoDisplayer Refine the present 3D-display and Slicing --Add more user controls and legends Finish another objective --Parallel Coordinates / or Animation