REINAS Visualization

Abstract:

The REINAS system is built to support realtime data acquisition, management, and visualization of environmental data at a regional scale (Monterey Bay to start with). As such it is logically organized into three components: instrumentation/system to support acquisition, spatial and temporal database management, and interactive visualization. We have also identified three main classes of users: instrumentation engineers and casual users, operational forecasters, and scientists.

The REINAS visualization system is organized to meet the needs of these three classes of users. It is therefore organized into three modes of operation: monitor mode (for watching the latest environmental parameters around Monterey Bay and for obtaining readings from specific instruments), forecast mode (for obtaining standard and customized weather products), and analysis mode (for retrospective analysis of synoptic data). Images from these three modes are available below. To help acceptance of the visualization system by our target users, we strive to make the interface as friendly as possible. We also use common day metaphors to make interaction more intuitive. See spray rendering . Since we cannot possibly anticipate all (current and future) visualization needs, one of the design objective is to make the system easily extensible with little or no programming. See mix and match . Another key that helps bring collaborators "together" is to facilitate collaboration over the Internet. See collaborative visualization . Finally, to help publicize our efforts, anyone with Internet access can obtain the latest reading from some our instruments through Xmet. For example, click here to get the view from Dream Inn, Santa Cruz and the current weather conditions a few miles away at UCSC Long Marine Laboratory.

Papers:

A postscript version of the paper to be presented at the Oceans'95 conference in San Diego on October, 1995 talks about the REINAS Instrumentation and Visualization systems and is available through anonymous ftp from ftp.cse.ucsc.edu , then get pub/reinas/papers/ocean95.rvis.ps.gz, or click here .

Related papers include:

  1. Suzana Djurcilov and Alex Pang, "Visualization Products On-Demand Through the Web" , VRML'98 Proceedings, ACM, 1998, pp. 7-13.
  2. Elijah Saxon, Zoe Wood, Michael O'Neil, Chris Oates, Jeremy Story, Suzana Djurcilov, and Alex Pang, "Integrated Visualization of Realtime Environmental Data" , Proceedings of the Spring Conference on Computer Graphics June 5-8, 1997, Bratislava, Slovakia, Comenius University, 1997, pp. 135-143.
  3. Alex Pang and Suzana Djurcilov, "Visualization Tools for Data Assimilation" , SPIE Proceedings on Visual Data Exploration and Analysis IV, 1997, pp. 67-76.
  4. Alex Pang and Craig M. Wittenbrink, "Collaborative 3D Visualization with CSpray" , IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications , special issue on 3D and Multimedia on the Information Superhighway, March, 1997, pp. 32-41.
  5. Alex Pang, "Spray Rendering" , IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, September, 1994, pp. 57-63.
  6. Alex Pang and Craig Wittenbrink, "Spray Rendering as a Modular Visualization Environment" , Computer Graphics, Vol. 29, No. 2, FOCUS: Modular Visualization Environments, Past, Present, and Future, edited by Gordon Cameron, 1995, pp. 33-36.
  7. ``Realtime Database Support for Environmental Visualization,'' In press Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, NY. Second Workshop on Database Issues for Data Visualization, Atlanta, Oct. 28, 1995, Editors G. Grinstein, U. Lang, and A. Wierse ; Wittenbrink, Rosen, Pang, Lodha, Mantey (1995). (Workshop paper .
  8. Alex Pang and Naim Alper, "Mix & Match: A Construction Kit for Visualization" , IEEE Visualization 1994 Conference Proceedings, 1994, pp. 302-309.
  9. Alex Pang, Craig M. Wittenbrink and Tom Goodman, "CSpray: A Collaborative Scientific Visualization Application" , SPIE Proceedings on Multimedia Computing and Networking, Vol. 2417, 1995, pp. 317-326.
  10. Alex Pang and Kyle Smith, "Spray Rendering: A New Framework for Visualization" , UCSC-CRL-93-01, January 1993.
  11. P.E. Mantey, D.D.E. Long, J.J. Garcia-Luna, A.T. Pang, H.G. Kolsky, B.R. Gritton, W.A. Nuss, "REINAS: Real-Time Environmental Information Network and Analysis System: Phase IV - Experimentation" , UCSC-CRL-94-43, 1994.
  12. P.E. Mantey, D.D.E. Long, J.J. Garcia-Luna, A.T. Pang, H.G. Kolsky (UCSC), B.R. Gritton (MBARI), W.A. Nuss (NPS), "REINAS: Real-Time Environmental Information Network and Analysis System: Phase III - Systems Design" , UCSC-CRL-94-08, March 10, 1994.
  13. P.E. Mantey, J.J. Garcia-Luna, H.G. Kolsky, D.D.E. Long, A.T. Pang, E.C. Rosen, C. Tang, B.R. Montague, M.D. Abram, W.W. Macy, B.R. Gritton, J. Paduan, and W. Nuss, "REINAS: Real-Time Environmental Information Network and Analysis System: Phase II - Requirements Definition" , UCSC-CRL-93-34, July 1993.
  14. Darrell D.E. Long, Patrick E. Mantey, Alex T. Pang, Glen G. Langdon, Jr., Robert A. Levinson, Harwood G. Kolsky and Bruce R. Gritton, "REINAS: Real-Time Environmental Information Network and Analysis System: Concept Statement" , UCSC-CRL-93-05, January 1993.

Images:

Source:

One can obtain the source for REINAS visualization by anonymous ftp to: ftp.cse.ucsc.edu then cd pub/reinas/spray. Note that this ftp version is not currently being supported as our efforts are concentrated on the next version of REINAS visualization.

People:

People involved in the development of the REINAS visualization system at one point or another:

Coming soon:

We are working on the next generation of the REINAS visualization system. The new version is written in C++ and OpenGL. We are also using the public domain xforms for the GUI. Target date for first release is September, 1995.
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