X 3 DEarth Browser Visualize our Earth in
X 3 D-Earth. Browser Visualize our Earth in your Web Browser Pasquale Herzig, Michael Englert, Sebastian Wagner, Yvonne Jung & Ulrich Bockholt pasquale. herzig@igd. fraunhofer. de Presented at Web 3 D 2013
Earth. Server • http: //www. earthserver. eu/ • Funded by EU e-Infrastructure – Project Number: 283610 • Open-access, ad-hoc analytics on extreme -size earth science data • RTD & services, six lighthouse applications
Earth. Server • Different domains of earth science with unique challenges - including visualization • E. g. : Cryospheric, atmospheric and planetary science, geology and oceanography, etc. • Potentially looking for very different things to display
Earth. Server • Aim: 100+ TB of raster data each • Server/Client architecture, OGC standards on top of HTTP as “glue” – WCS, WMS, WCPS – OGC standards development also part of the project • Servers designed to deal with big data, clients request manageable subsets • This talk: focus on 3 D web client
Visualizations in X 3 DOM • Open Source middleware for declarative 3 D on the web -> Tutorials yesterday • http: //www. x 3 dom. org
Web 3 D Client • Aim: display raster data in a 3 D environment on a web page • Raster data comes in many varieties – 1 to 3 spatial dimensions, optionally combined with a temporal dimension – uniform and various types of non-uniform grids, general meshes etc. – multiple coverages (datasets) sometimes necessary for meaningful results – 1 to n channels of different types –. . . and plenty more. . .
Web 3 D Client • Also may need different visualizations of any coverage type. – Planes – Elevation Maps – Point Clouds – Time Series – Volume rendering –. . . • Plenty of “ 3 D widgets” you could think of
Web 3 D Client • Also, may want to combine different “widgets” in one display • And that’s just visualization. • There is also interaction • Some basics (like navigation) are baseline, but how to anticipate all the custom interaction schemes users might want?
Web 3 D Client • Now, what is a 3 D web client then? • In the first year, we made a few prototypes, each addressing a different scenario • They all have in common that they display something in a 3 D box rather than e. g. on a globe – Internally dubbed the “fishtank”
EOX Multi. Coverage
Planet. Server WCS/WMS
WCPS Elevation Grid
Unified Client • Our aim was not to deliver just a bunch of semi-related code solving very specific problems. • One 3 D web client to rule them all. • On desktops as well as mobile devices.
Unified Client • Our solution: make client modular and split setup and execution • Operator gets all the power at source code level to set up the application, may even write custom modules if necessary
Unified Client • The unified client consists of – a framework with a module API – modules – UI & tools • E. g. a module that has API to setup WCPS call that will request RGBA image and add it to scene as elevation map • Framework has composition functionality like transformations and transparency
Unified Client
Underground Radar Data
Side Panels
Operator - Setup Example
User Interface - Using JQuery. UI • Created automatically • Basics for modules – Movement, scaling, transparency. . • Settings for light, cameras & annotations • Easy to change and to adopt
Progressive Data Transmission • Load low resolution data first – Increase resolution after a succesfull query – Add higher resolution when available • Quicker feedback for the user • The protocols allow to choose the resolution
Video
Summary • Web client using X 3 DOM and no plugins – Except IE (X 3 DOM Flash fallback) • Easy to set up by operators – Few lines of Javascript code • Combine data from different sources – Services for e. g. geology and oceanography • Combine different visualization types – Elevation map, underground, pointcloud…
What’s Next? • Performance – Less Javascript, more shader in X 3 DOM • User Experience – better UI feedback • Interaction – e. g. UI for positioning planes and callbacks into application code to handle change events • More modules
Thank You! • Feel free to contact me or the Earth. Server community. • pasquale. herzig@igd. fraunhofer. de • http: //www. earthserver. eu • Questions? • More technical details in the paper.
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