the following computer simulation of a
high-speed flight around the Los Angeles
vicinity was produced to demonstrate a
capability of scientific data
visualization this animation is part of
the NASA funded research being carried
out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory the
entire animation was produced from one
Landsat satellite image that was merged
with digital elevation information
Landsat views the earth from 570 miles
up and is capable of seeing features
that are approximately 30 meters square
a 30 meter square area is approximately
the same size as the area inside the
basis of a professional baseball field
this is Los Angeles California on July
third 1985 we are not traveling toward
the Pacific Ocean at about 200,000 miles
an hour and will drop down behind santa
catalina island about 26 miles off the
coast of Los Angeles we're going to fly
through the estimates of the island and
then cross the coast north of the Santa
Monica Mountains
as we head south we can see features
such as marina del rey and Los Angeles
International Airport we see the palos
verdes peninsula in the center now along
with the Long Beach harbor now we're
moving down into the orange county area
the bowtie shaped feature now visible
our Balboa & Lido islands in newport bay
we're heading toward los angeles and in
the center of the screen is downtown
hollywood in beverly hills are below as
we move into the San Fernando Valley
you'll see a v-shaped Lake appear that's
castaic lake we will now turn and
proceed to fly straight down the Rift
Valley of the San Andreas Fault we're
crossing the East Fork of the San
Gabriel Mountains and we'll turn around
and face those same mountains when we
lose elevation into the Pomona Valley
area
we can see Mount Baldy at the top right
of the screen and as we pan the San
Gabriel Mountains we can note in the
foreground the santa fe dam and
recreation area the Santa Anita
racetrack and golf course
you can now see the Rose Bowl with the
surrounding golf course it took five and
a half days of non-stop computer time on
a machine capable of computing four
million instructions per second over
3000 digital frames were generated to
make la the movie that represents more
than 2.6 billion bytes of data that is
equivalent to enough characters to fill
1.3 million pages of texts that would be
a stack of paper over forty four stories
tall techniques developed during the
creation of la the movie will be used to
help scientists analyze the large
quantities of data being sent back to
earth by satellites the following
animation demonstrates an application of
scientific data visualization
using nine images taken by the voyager 2
spacecraft planetary geologists and
visualization specialists created a
computer simulated flight over the
southern hemisphere of Miranda a
geologically interesting moon of the
planet Uranus the flight takes us over a
bewildering array of landforms as we
simulate flight over the terrain and
altitudes of three to twenty miles keep
in mind that Voyager tues closest
approach to Miranda was more than 18,000
miles above the surface
a study of the Earth's climate must take
into account the crucial role played by
clouds besides delivering life-giving
rain to the land clouds help maintain a
proper balance in the global climate the
following digital animation combines
satellite cloud data and earth elevation
data from maps to demonstrate how
atmospheric scientists and visualization
specialists team up to perform climatic
research the clouds were derived from
infrared and microwave satellite
instrument data using a supercomputer
at first glance clouds may appear
chaotic but closer observation reveals a
semblance of order recognizable patterns
show how air moves up and down while
circulating around the globe the varied
features of the Earth's surface
portrayed here by color as well as
prevailing winds have distinct effects
on the formation and distribution of
clouds computer animation to visualize
clouds provides a unique insight into
the structure and dynamics of global
weather systems
now as we add the third dimension to
both the Earth's surface and the clouds
we can see the relationship between
cloud tops and the Earth's topography
the cloud top elevations were also
derived from satellite data the vertical
dimensions have been exaggerated 20
times to enhance comparison our flight
first takes us along the west coast of
Africa flying north of Scandinavia we
see Europe then quickly cross the North
Atlantic and drop below the cloud tops
of the eastern United States we look
west into the Amazon basin of South
America
we circle Cape Horn and view the Andes
Mountains up close Central America
passes below as we view north america
diving below the clouds in the
mid-atlantic we fly over the
Mediterranean turkey passes to our right
as we fly across the Caspian Sea into
the southern Soviet Union China and now
Japan are below us Southeast Asia and
Australia are seen as we head for the
Himalayas and Indian subcontinent the
Middle East and Africa complete our
journey
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the atmosphere can be considered a
gigantic solar powered engine which
controls our daily weather the Pacific
Ocean shown here covers nearly half the
earth it is the major storehouse of
energy and source of water vapor for the
planet this is the winter season in the
northern hemisphere and we can observe
the course of numerous storms one after
the other approaching North America from
the Gulf of Alaska
I
note the belt of clouds near the equator
as we rotate the earth to observe the
opposite hemisphere this belt provides
the moisture necessary to sustain the
equatorial rainforests of the Congo
Basin in central Africa and the Amazon
in South America North Africa dominated
by the Sahara is characterized by its
lack of clouds near the top of this
hemisphere we can also observe winter
storms move with regularity across the
North Atlantic and Europe the data
visualization techniques developed to
produce earth the movie represent
powerful new tools that scientists will
use to study our complex global
environment
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Mars the fourth planet from the Sun is
visible to the naked eye as a bright
star in the night sky through a
telescope it appears as a yellowish
brown disc with indications of complex
features however using images taken by
cameras on the Viking orbiter spacecraft
a simulated flight over Mars reveals
much more detail these are shaded relief
maps of the topography of the Earth and
Mars rendered out of spheres the
diameter of Mars is 4,200 2 miles or
about fifty three percent of Earth's the
planet's volume is about fifteen percent
of Earth's a comparison of the relative
size of each planet to the size of its
surface features demonstrates the
enormity of the Martian terrain the Mars
elevations were derived from
stereographic analysis are the Viking
orbiter imagery for scale the outline of
the continental United States is
superimposed on a portion of the Martian
terrain over which our flight will occur
among the most impressive features on
Mars are the Tharsis Monty's shield
volcanoes more than two times the height
of Mount Everest and the Valles
Marineris a system of enormous canyons
over 3,000 miles long this Viking
orbiter image mosaic was used for the
flight simulation the lion being drawn
follows the flight path flight
elevations vary from 500 miles to 3
miles above the surface the relief has
been exaggerated 5 times and the natural
color enhanced to allow better
interpretation of small surface features
for centuries Mars has captivated
observers on earth unmanned spacecraft
and scientific data visualization have
increased our interest in and knowledge
of the red planet
the following computer animation of the
Monterey Bay environment was produced to
demonstrate the fusion and visualization
of multiple geophysical data sets both
the United States Navy and NASA
sponsored the development of
visualization technology to enhance the
understanding of environmental data this
is a Landsat thematic mapper image of
the Monterey Peninsula the city of
Monterey is seen at the top pebble beach
is visible in the southern portion of
the peninsula large kelp beds are
visible just offshore we now travel
straight upward to a height of just over
30 miles from here we can see the entire
Monterey Bay Area the Landsat thematic
mapper imagery of the ocean is now
replaced with coastal zone color scanner
imagery this instrument measures the
varying levels of chlorophyll in the
ocean reds and yellows indicate higher
concentrations blues and greens indicate
lower amounts as the coastal zone color
scanner data is made translucent bottom
topography features become visible we
are now descending at a velocity of over
18,000 miles per hour our approach
Sloan's and he moved westward to the far
end of the Monterey Bay Canyon
this is a shaded relief image taken from
sea bean bathymetric data the shaded
relief is overlaid with geological
long-range inclined as dick or glorious
side scan sonar data the SONA graphs
have been computer enhanced to show
ocean bottom geographic details
as we approach the shallow areas in the
bay we have shown graphically the
boundary which we will use in showing
the current flow through the bay we are
looking northeast across the bay
in order to show the current flow model
we have greatly exaggerated the vertical
scale
the two-layer model shown here
represents 17 days of ocean currents at
depths 50 and 250 meters note the more
rapid north to south flow through the
bay in the top layer due to the
prevailing winds the bottom / is flowing
north toward the recesses of the canyon
we now travel up and out of the water
and toward the shore at a velocity of
just under 8,000 miles per hour we turn
south and move down to our starting
point on the peninsula
the ocean has been made transparent so
that we can see the canyons in the bay
finish our journey once again over the
Monterey Peninsula
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