GPU-Accelerated 3D Visualisation and Analysis of Migratory Behaviour of Long Lived Birds

GPS、GSM技术的进步为运动生态学领域开辟了可能性。现在，人们正在收集大量的数据来跟踪动物的运动，目的是回答与动物行为有关的基本问题。随着电子部件的简化和效率的提高，附加的传感器可以开始与GPS跟踪耦合，以使得能够记录与给定位置处的动物状态相关的特征。新设备结合了加速计和其他传感器，可以对它们跟踪的动物的行为进行分类。像Movebank.org这样的网站很难可视化某些数据集所涉及的数据点的数量，并且它们目前不支持对来自其他传感器（如加速度计或心率记录器）的数据进行可视化或分析。硬件正在变得可用，但需要软件来显示现在正在产生的大型多传感器数据集，并且在未来将不可避免地变得更加普遍。该软件对于研究人员分析和可视化数据至关重要。这是特别相关的了解如何环境条件可能会影响鸟类的运动决策和飞行的能量在不断变化的环境variables.Methodology这个项目将利用5年的跟踪数据，包括100多个白色鹳在欧洲和非洲移动。来自伊比利亚的白色鹳最近改变了它们的迁徙行为，在这些以前完全迁徙的种群中报告了非迁徙个体。迁徙行为的这些迅速变化提供了一个机会，既可以确定复杂和高度进化的行为受到不断变化的环境条件影响的机制。该项目还将获得海鸟的跟踪数据，以便为海洋领域的动物开发3D可视化，其中包括全球定位系统，加速计，浸入，时间深度和其他类型的海上运动和活动数据。该项目的主要目标是开发技术，以3D方式可视化数据。目标：1）开发技术，以有效地提供全球定位系统数据与附加传感器上的地球仪。2)这些工具应该可以扩展到支持多达100只跟踪鸟类的数据。3)用户应该能够交互式地导航地球仪，获得概览并放大以查看原始数据。4)了解鸟类在不同环境条件下的运动决策和飞行的能量成本之间的联系。

Advances in GPS, GSM technologies has opened up possibilities in the field of movement ecology. Now vast amounts of data are being collected to track animal movements with the aim of answering fundamental questions related to animal behaviour. As miniaturisation and efficiency of electronic components improves additional sensors can begin to be coupled with the GPS tracking to enable features related to the animal's state at a given position to be recorded. New devices incorporate accelerometer and other sensors to enable classification of the behaviour of the animals they tracked. Websites such as Movebank.org struggle to visualise the quantity of data points involved in some data sets and they do not currently support visualisation or analysis of data from other sensors such as accelerometers or heart-rate loggers. The hardware is becoming available but there is a need for software to display the large multisensory data sets which are being produced now and will inevitably become more prevalent in the future. This software is of paramount importance to enable researchers to analyse and visualise their data. This is especially relevant to understand how environmental conditions may affect the movement decisions of birds and the energetics of flight under changing environmental variables.Methodology This project will take advantage of 5 years of tracking data comprising more than 100 white storks moving in Europe and Africa. White storks from Iberia have recently changed their migratory behaviour and non-migratory individuals have been reported in these previously wholly migratory populations. These rapid changes in migratory behaviour provide an opportunity to both identify the mechanisms through which complex and highly evolved behaviours are affected by changing environmental conditions. The project will also have access to tracking data from seabirds, such that 3D visualisations can be developed for animals in the marine realm incorporating GPS, accelerometer, immersion, time-depth and other types of at-sea movement and activity data. The key aim of this project is to develop techniques to visualise the data in 3D. Objectives: 1) To develop techniques to efficiently render GPS data combined with additional sensor on a globe. 2) The tools should scale to enable data for up to 100 tracked birds. 3) The user should be able to interactively navigate the globe obtaining an overview and also zooming in to view the original data. 4) Understand the links between movement decisions of birds and the energetic costs of flying under different environmental conditions.