1. Virtual Reality Techniques for Sharing Data and Models
Bianca Falcidieno Flavio Rossi Michela Spagnuolo
Istituto per la Matematica Applicata
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Via De Marini ,6 Genova
Italy

2. CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE (CNR)
The Italian National Research Council is a government body responsible for the promotion and regulation of research to further scientific and technological progress in Italy
334 Operative Units located throughout Italy (191 Institutes)
Research Areas
15 National Advisory Committees

3. Istituto per la Matematica Applicata
IMA
Istituto per la Matematica Applicata
CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Via De Marini 6
Genova
Italy

4. Computer Graphics Group
Silvia Ansaldi
Marco Attene
Silvia Biasotti
Chiara Catalano
Andrea Clematis
Monica De Martino
Bianca Falcidieno
Marzia Fontana
Giovanni Gallo
Franca Giannini
Maria Meirana
Marina Monti
Michela Mortara
Massimiliano Moscati
Laura Papaleo
Corrado Pizzi
Caterina Pienovi
Alessandro Raviola
Flavio Rossi
Michela Spagnuolo
Salvatore Spinello
Franco Tallero

5. Computer Graphics Group
Projects
Industrial Design
Aesthetic Design
Fast Prototyping
Antarctica
Digital Terrain Modeling
Sea Floor Modeling
Coastal Area Management
Pollutant Diffusion
Ergonomy
International Cooperations France, Germany, Greece, Japan, Spain
Research Fields
Geometric Modelling
Shape Modelling
Main Applications
Product Modelling for Industrial Design
Spatial Data Modelling in Geographic Information Systems

6. International Projects related to Spatial Data Handling
PLAINS: Prototype Landscape Assessment Information System
Starting date: Nov 1999
Contact Person: Andrea Clematis
EC TELEMATICS FOR ENVIRONMENT
WATERMAN: System for Water Monitoring and Sustainable Management Based on Ground Stations and Satellite Images
Starting date: Oct 98
Contact Person: Giuliana Dettori
EC INCO-COPERNICUS
ACT: Autonomous Container Tracking
Starting date: 1 Dec 1998
Contact Person: Andrea Clematis, Monica De Martino
EC BRITE EURAM III CRAFT

7. International Projects related to Spatial Data Handling
High-quality surface modelling
Consultancy Research Contract between IMA-CNR and Monolith co Ltd, Tokyo, Japan ( )
surface modelling
model compression
uncertainty coding
shape analysis

8. International Projects related to Spatial Data Handling
THETIS: a Data Management and Data Visualisation System for Supporting Coastal Zone Management of the Mediterranean Sea
TELEMATICS, Project F0069, Starting: 1st July 1998 (30 months)
ICS-FORTH, Greece (Leader Contractor)
ERCIM, France
INRIA, France
University of Crete, Greece
IACM-FORTH, Greece
Space Alcatel, France
HR WALLINGFORD, UK
RECORMED-NTEWORK, France
IMBC, Greece
IMA-CNR, Italy

9. Vision: Objectives: THETIS Project
Information management in CZM is promoted through an open, federated system that facilitates resource sharing while maintaining operational autonomy for its members
Objectives:
On-line access using WWW technology
Straightforward plug-in / publishing capability both for models and data sets
Efficient search for data and models via appropriate metadata descriptions and a distributed search engine
Flexible data integration using mediation techniques
Dynamic invocation of models to produce data on demand
Interactive data visualisation using GIS technology and VR

10. data programs retrieval engine search programs data
THETIS architecture
wrappers for data and programs
access
publish
data
programs
retrieval
engine
search
THETIS
programs
user
data

11. data programs retrieval engine programs search engine data data
THETIS architecture
data
programs
retrieval
engine
programs
THETIS
search
engine
data
data

12. data programs retrieval engine programs data search engine data data
THETIS architecture
data
programs
retrieval
engine
programs
data
THETIS
search
engine
data
data

13. THETIS Demonstrator Scenarios
Waste Transport, for the simulation of pollution point sources
general circulation data, concentration of effluents, transport of pollutants
Tracking of Sea Structures, for the study of the dynamic of oceans
oceanographic structures
Nearshore and Offshore Waves, for coastal defences, coastal and offshore structures, flood prevention, etc
Calculation of the wave climate based on historical wind and wave data
Estimation of directional (2D) spectra of surface waves based on heave-pitch-roll time series

14. Embedding of a 3D surface modelling program in the THETIS system
IMA-CNR Contribution
Embedding of a 3D surface modelling program in the THETIS system
digital topographic data of coastal areas (i.e. bathymetry, coast lines, contours, ……) are merged in a suitable geometric model able to capture the different morphological shapes of coastal areas
Integration of advanced visualization tools in the THETIS system
virtual reality techniques offer a transparent and easy-to-use support for sharing GUI environments over the WEB

15. Surface modelling system: a shape-based approach
bathymetric profiles
shape-based model
shape reconstruction
filtering
shape-based model
digitalized contours
constrained Delaunay TIN
medial axis transform
data
shape
reconstruction
enriched
shape-based
model
abstraction
reconfiguration
analysis

16. Virtual Reality Virtual Environments
Computer interface technology for the interaction with real-time 3D virtual environments in a more intuitive manner
Virtual Environments
realistic,interactive and immersive simulations of places and scenes

17. Virtual Reality for Geodata
VR, as a tool for simulating the real world rather then for imitating it, is a suitable graphical interface for navigating spatial data and supporting users in decision-making processes or exploratory data analysis
VRML: Virtual Reality Modeling Language
Standard language for representing VR worlds
Support for modelling of geometry and interactions
Sharable and platform-independent
VRML is a suitable support for building GUI for geodata
Cost effective (generally, VR plug-ins are freeware)
Easy to use

18. Implementation strategy

19. VINCA: Virtual Navigation of Coastal Areas
thetis.ima.ge.cnr.it/~thetis/thetis.html

20. VINCA: Virtual Navigation of Coastal Areas

21. VINCA: Virtual Navigation of Coastal Areas

22. VINCA: Virtual Navigation of Coastal Areas

23. VINCA: Virtual Navigation of Coastal Areas

24. VINCA: Virtual Navigation of Coastal Areas

25. THETIS: Wave Scenario User Interface (provisional)

26. THETIS: Wave Scenario (provisional)

27. Conclusions and Future Work
THETIS: data and program sharing system
Full embedding of the surface modelling module in the THETIS system, with integration with the GIS user interface of THETIS
VR to support data visualization together with traditional GIS tools
Extend the interaction capabilities with VR-DTM
VRML or Java3D ??