Stephanie Smullen

Computer Science and Engineering

Stephanie-Smullen@utc.edu

Slides are available at
zog.utc.edu/~vislab/Terrain/Part2.htm

Terrain Visualization: Software

• Virtual Reality
• GIS software
• VTP
• World Wind and Blue Marble
• Google Earth
• Virtual Earth
• 3D Stereo worlds

Virtual reality - VRML

VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) is a file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind.

• NIST site has links to plug-ins and players
• The Cosmo Player was installed on this computer -- the Chomp example comes with it

Virtual reality - iv

Open Inventor -- Open Inventor is an object-oriented 3D toolkit that presents a programming model based on a 3D scene database to simply graphics programming

• VRML file format is also used in Open Inventor iv files
• Coin 3D API is a current implementation of the Open Inventor toolkit

Virtual reality - X3D

X3D is a open standards file format and run-time architecture to represent and communicate 3D scenes and objects using XML

Instant Reality provides a viewer for X3D files

The test set gives you an idea of what can be done with X3d

GIS Software

GIS software involves the use of some combination of digital maps and georeferenced data

• GRASS – Originally developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, open source
• SAGA GIS – System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses- a hybrid GIS software
• Quantum GIS – QGIS is a user friendly Open Source GIS that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows
• MapWindow GIS – Free, open source GIS desktop application and programming component
• Wikipedia lists many more

GIS Software (cont.)

ESRI produces ArcGIS a widely used commercial package

Low resolution texture drape	Higher resolution	Terrain removed-transportation shown

USGS imagery is not as up to date as commercial imagery

• Here are some examples prepared by Andy Carroll, GIS analyst at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, of what you can create with ESRI products

VTP

The goal of the Virtual Terrain Project is to foster the creation of tools for easily constructing any part of the real world in interactive, 3D digital form.

• Once vtp is downloaded and installed a variety of demos are available
• Enviro lets you tour your creation

World Wind and Blue Marble

NASA project -- 3D virtual globe that combines NASA imagery generated from satellites that have produced Blue Marble, Landsat 7, SRTM, MODIS and more

• Once downloaded and installed you can run it
• NASA also offers Blue Marble a source of terrain images
• The Blue Marble Navigator utilizes some of the imagery

Google Earth

The main page for the Google Maps API

• You need a Google Maps API key
• The Google Maps API documentation provides examples
• A simple JavaScript application reads this xml file
• when stored in the directory associated with the map key -- browsing here
• the rank variable is displayed as balloon color
• the frequency variable represented by balloon size
• A simple modification of the JavaScript allows the use of school houses, rather than balloon -- try it here
• There is a large user base where you can find help on a variety of topics

Virtual Earth

• Microsoft's mapping and visualization application
• Extensive documentation for developers is available - see the starting guide
• A wide variety of examples are available at the customer gallery

Open Street Map

To provide mapping information in an Open Source manner, a group of users supports Open Street Map

A number of European cities have large support groups -- see Berlin, Germany for an example of the group's mapping work

Virtual terrain

• The Dryad project lets you create realistic trees for your virtual world
• A extensive list of programs to help create a virtual world is available here

3D Stereo worlds

• Andrew Johnson's Walkabout program offers the opportunity to learn about virtual reality, terrain visualization and 3D stereo
• We used the Chattanooga quad and an appropriate texture drape with this program
• An introduction to stereoviewing is available in this pdf file
• The Geowall Consortium sought to make terrain investigations more realistic through the use of inexpensive 3D stereo

Questions?

email: Stephanie-Smullen@utc.edu

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