1. GeoWall: Low-cost 3-Dimensional Display Technology for the Remote Sensing Sciences
Brian Davis, USGS/EROS Data Center
Paul Morin, University of Minnesota
Luc Renambot, Andrew Johnson, Jason Leigh, University of Illinois - Chicago
International Workshop
on Earth Observation Technology and Application
Prospects for Cooperation in Earth Observation
18th Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS) Plenary Meeting and Associated Events
November 17, Beijing, China
Topic 1: Earth Observation Technology and Plans
Session 2: Instrument and Measurement Technologies

2. State of the Wall
Past
Present
Future

3. PAST CAVEs - Virtual Reality - Very Expensive
Dual-output (Stereo) graphics cards for PC Motherboards
CAVElib port to linux
GeoWall Consortium

5. Present Recently-developed, affordable 3D stereo visualization
Research collaborations initiated
Over 300 by Dec. 2003, current est. 500+
10% of all U.S. Geology undergraduates
Over 15 museums
20 papers and presentations at 2003 AGU, One half-day Session at 2004 AGU
Potential to serve satellite remote sensing

6. Future Commercial GIS Software GeoWall2
ESRI ArcGIS, MDL Chime, DGI EarthVision, MMK Roma, IVS Fledermaus, VRCO VGEO, AGI Satellite Tool Kit
GeoWall2

9. Future Commercial GIS Software GeoWall2 PG2 – Personal GeoWall2 Stereo
ESRI ArcGIS, MDL Chime, DGI EarthVision, MMK Roma, IVS Fledermaus, VRCO VGEO, AGI Satellite Tool Kit
GeoWall2
PG2 – Personal GeoWall2
Stereo
Science Museum of Minnesota – St. Paul

11. Future Commercial GIS Software GeoWall2 PG2 – Personal GeoWall2 Stereo
ESRI ArcGIS, MDL Chime, DGI EarthVision, MMK Roma, IVS Fledermaus, VRCO VGEO, AGI Satellite Tool Kit
GeoWall2
PG2 – Personal GeoWall2
Stereo
Science Museum of Minnesota – St. Paul
Printed Maps

12. Low-End GeoWall Stereo Printed Maps Topography without contours
No crashing
Inexpensive
Will work next year
Can be used in the field

13. Future Commercial GIS Software GeoWall2 PG2 – Personal GeoWall2 Stereo
ESRI ArcGIS, MDL Chime, DGI EarthVision, MMK Roma, IVS Fledermaus, VRCO VGEO, AGI Satellite Tool Kit
GeoWall2
PG2 – Personal GeoWall2
Stereo
Science Museum of Minnesota – St. Paul
Printed maps
Passive Stereo LCDs – Interlaced pixels for an audience of one – no glasses
Stereo Photographs

15. Demonstration: Wall Evolution
Earthquake Epicenters
Landsat Stereo Pairs
ESRI ArcScene 4-D Animation
Stereo Photography

16. Additional Information
PG2 at USGS Exhibit Booth
Bibliography
Contacts
References
This PowerPoint Document at:

17. Bibliography
Research is supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (ANI , EAR , and EAR )
Steinwand, D., Davis, B., Weeks, N., 2003, “GeoWall: Investigations into Low-Cost Stereo Display Technologies”, USGS Open File Report
Leigh, J., Morin, P., Johnson, A., DeFanti, T., Brown, M., Sandin, D., Rack, F., Vernon, F., Orcutt, J., Davis, B., van Keken, P., Smarr, L., 2003, “GeoWall-2: a Scalable Display System for the GeoSciences”, Fall 2003 American Geophysical Union Conference, San Francisco, CA, December 8-12, 2003
Davis, B., 2004, “Virtual Reality Meets GIS: 3D on the Wall”, ArcNews, Summer 2004, Vol. 26 No.2
Davis, B., 2004, “Affordable Systems for Viewing Spatial Data in Stereo”, ArcUSer, July-September 2004
Davis, B., Morin, P., Ramstad, M., 2004, “Three-Dimensional Anaglyph of the Earth, ESRI Map Book Volume Nineteen, 2004
Leigh, J., Renambot, L., Johnson, A., Brown, M., Sandin, J., DeFanti, T., Ellisman, M., Orcutt, J., Smarr, L., Davis, B., Morin, P., Ito, E., Rack, F., 2004, “Challenges in Ultra-High-Resolution Visualization and Collaboration”, 2004, High Information Content Display Systems Symposium, Arlington, VA, September 13-14, 2004,
Krishnaprasad, N., Vishwanath, V., Venkataraman, S., Rao, A., Renambot, L., Leigh, J., Johnson, A., Davis, B., 2004, “JuxtaView – A Tool for Interactive Visualization of Large Imagery on Scalable Tiled Displays”, Cluster Computing 2004, San Diego, CA, Sep , 2004

18. Contacts

19. References http://edc.usgs.gov http://GeoWall.org

20. Background
USGS Research Project: Information Technologies Research Project Lead
Momentum from development of GeoWall Consortium
Geo – Geology (Geography… Geometry… Geo…)
Wall – One wall of a cave – descendent of CAVElib
3-D Viz on the cheap
GeoWall Consortium - formulation without funding
Jason Leigh University of Illinois – Chicago (UIC), Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) – Cave Technology
Peter van Keken, University of Michigan - Geology
Paul Morin, U of Minnesota – Geology Visualization, Wall Evangelist
Brian Davis, EROS – Data Pimp

21. Number of GeoWalls – 12/03 2-10 new systems a week $15,000* $6,000*
(*Cost of a modest system)

22. Cost of a Modest System

23. GeoWall Index Approximate number of GeoWalls: 250
(With respect to Harper’s Index, as of 12/03)
Approximate number of GeoWalls: 250
Number outside the US: ~30
Percentage in the classroom: ~75%
Percentage of non-major earth science students that see a GeoWall in the US: 15-25%
Average cost of one “CAVE”: $1.5 million
Cost of the GeoWalls currently in educational service: $1.5 million
Most popular material: USGS’s Stereo LANDSAT Imagery
Data transferred from GeoWall.org: 279 Gigabytes
Busiest day on GeoWall.org: 300,000 hits in 8 hours on September 1, 2002 (Slashdot.org article)
Publications beginning to appear
Each month, the Harper's Index provides a statistical snapshot of the world's economic, political, and cultural climate.
The Harper's Index is published to Harpers.org one month after print publication.

24. Road Shows National Park Service Regional HQ, Omaha SDSM&T
Sinte Gleska University
Missouri River Institute, USD
Grand Canyon National Park
Russell Senate Office Building
03 SD Technology Summit
Space Days, Washington Pavilion
MIB (Main Interior Building), Washington, D.C.
USGS Headquarters (x2)
ESRI User Conference, San Diego, CA
GIS Day, EPA HQ
04 DSU CECIS Symposium
EDC Auditorium

25. Notable Audiences Under-Secretaries of DOI SD Sen. Tom Daschle
NASA deputy director
SD Governor Mike Rounds
CBS News
Federal Agency and Academic Collaborators
Various USGS HQ staff
BOR
Jamie Rounds, SD 2010 Initiative
FEMA Regional Director
Students
Teachers
USGS Directors
Ukrainian Land and Resource Management Center
National Wetlands Inventory Coordinator
National Volcano Hazards Program Coordinator
Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
Canadian Center for Remote Sensing
Naval Oceanographic Office
Chinese Bureau of Mapping
NIMA
State-wide Lewis&Clark Meeting
SD Geography Bee

26. Development Direction Thus Far
Hardware development
Now stable and spun off to 4 companies
Software development
“Seed” applications freely distributed
Encourage the support of GeoWall software by key vendors:
ESRI ArcGIS, MDL Chime, DGI EarthVision, MMK Roma, IVS Fledermaus, VRCO VGEO, AGI Satellite Tool Kit
Establishment of GeoWall community
4th Annual GeoWall Meeting Spring – May 2004
Special interest groups being established
Museum community underway

27. GeoWall Museum Network
Alaska: The Imaginarium, Anchorage.
Illinois: SciTech Hands on Museum, Aurora; Discovery Center, Rockford; Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda; Lakeview Museum, Peoria.
Indiana: Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville; Science Central, Fort Wayne; Children’s Science and Technology Museum, Terre Haute.
Iowa: Bluedorn Science Imaginarium, Waterloo.
Texas: Don Harrington Discovery Center, Amarillo
Other Museums:
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry
Adler Planetarium, Chicago
Science Museum of Minnesota
Lowell Observatory
Texas Memorial Museum - UT Austin

28. Final Points GeoWall is now going beyond earth sciences
Price can’t get much lower
Basic technology is ready
Vendors are supporting the community
Critical mass has been reached in the geosciences
Assessment is just beginning
Timing for feedback is excellent
Opportunities for collaborative research