Biodiversity and Ecosystem Informatics: The Eco Flight Simulator: Visualizing landscape patterns, ecosystem processes and biodiversity information using flight simulator technology

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

EIA-0131924Stevenson, RobertUniversity of Massachusetts - Boston.BDEI: The Eco Flight Simulator: Visualizing landscape patterns, ecosystem processes and biodiveresity information using flight simulator technologySummaryThis proposal develops the Eco Flight Simulator a system for visualizing landscape patterns,ecosystem processes and biodiversity data. Many state and federal agencies are currentlygathering large amounts of spatial data via aerial photographs and satellite imagery that can beused for seeing the landscape (distribution and location of habitats, size of habitat fragments, therelationships among political and ecosystem boundaries), the analysis of ecosystem processes(water cycling, nutrient cycling, pollution movement) and biodiversity issues (habitat types,population of invasive species, species interactions, etc.). For the most part these data arecurrently presented in the form of maps using GIS software. The view is static and the datadisplayed are static (but see the USGS's National Map Initiative). However, flight simulatortechnologies, developed first for the military and now common in the entertainment industry,offer a much better visualization technology - a user defined birds eye view of the landscapethat can include the spatio-temporal complexity of the environment. Using standard off the shelfhardware, open source software and public domain data, marine (Stellwagen Bank NationalMarine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Maine) and terrestrial flight simulations (Ipswich and ParkerRiver Watersheds of Essex County Massachusetts) (one simulator) are developed that presentenvironmental information in new ways.