Visualizing Three-Dimensional Ocean Eddies in Web Browsers
Visualizing Three-Dimensional Ocean Eddies in Web Browsers
复制标题
在 Web 浏览器中可视化三维海洋涡流
DOI：
10.1109/access.2019.2909655
复制
发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
K. Bemis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Li Liu;D. Silver;K. Bemis
尽管在海洋环流的数值模拟中，中尺度涡旋和其他可识别的三维特征对于理解海洋热输送和气候变化具有重要意义，但很少有专门的三维可视化工具供科学家使用。本文提出了一个在web浏览器中实现三维海洋涡旋可视化的框架。该框架包括一个基于特征的涡流计算算法，该算法由一个独立的c++程序实现，以及一个基于web图形库的三维涡流查看器。该框架将涡流提取、跟踪、查询和交互式可视化集成于一个工作流中，旨在促进对海洋涡流的可视化探索和分析，从而帮助领域专家更深入地了解海洋环流过程。在该框架中，基于特征的算法通过利用连续数据帧之间的一致性，只关注感兴趣的区域，显著降低了数据的存储需求和可视化任务的渲染成本。3D涡流查看器在标准的web浏览器中呈现涡流可视化，这使得在不同平台上不同位置的科学合作者之间轻松共享工具和结果，而无需安装专门的软件。本文讨论了该框架在设计过程中的一般考虑，框架的技术事实，框架在高分辨率区域海洋模拟中的应用，三维涡流观察器的一般使用场景和用户评价。
Despite the importance of mesoscale eddies, and other three-dimensional features discernable in numerical simulations of ocean circulations, to the understanding of oceanic heat transport and climate change, there are few dedicated three-dimensional visualization tools for scientists to use. This paper presents a framework for the visualization of three-dimensional (3D) ocean eddies in web browsers. The framework includes a feature-based eddy computation algorithm implemented by a standalone C++ program and a web graphics library-based 3D eddy viewer. Combining eddy extraction, tracking, query, and interactive visualizations in one workflow, the proposed framework is designed to facilitate the visual exploration and analysis of ocean eddies and thus help domain experts get more insight into the process of ocean circulation. In the framework, the feature-based algorithm significantly reduces the storage requirement of data and the rendering cost of visualization tasks by exploiting the coherence between consecutive data frames and focusing on just those regions of interest. The 3D eddy viewer presents eddy visualizations within a standard web browser, which enables the easy sharing of the tool and the results between scientific collaborators at different locations on diverse platforms without the need to install specialized software. In this paper, the general considerations in the design process as well as the technical facts of the framework, the application of the framework to a high-resolution regional ocean simulation, the general usage scenarios of the 3D eddy viewer and the user evaluation are discussed.