Extended Abstract (704K)J5.1
D3D: Overview, Update and Future Plans
Edward J. Szoke, NOAA/FSL, Boulder, CO; and U. H. Grote, P. T. McCaslin, and P. A. McDonald
This presentation is intended as an overview of D3D, giving some of the history of the project, various milestones, an update as to its present status, and some future ideas and plans.
Exploration with 3D visualization at FSL began about 1990, at first using commercial software to display experimental model output, and customizing this software for special applications. After years of use, exploration into other potential visualization software culminated with the choice of the University of Wisconsin's Vis5D package, which had already been developed to display meteorological information. Since that time, a major effort at FSL has been to make considerable modifications to the Vis5D interface so that it appeared and acted functionally much like D2D. This was done to help ease a transition to operational application since forecasters were already familiar with the D2D interface, and especially the Volume Browser.
Following the model chosen for D2D development back in the 1980s at FSL (then PROFS), two exercises (RT98 and RT99) have been held in Boulder where forecasters and other participants were invited to test the application in a simulated operational setting. RT98 mainly involved inhouse participants and a few forecasters from the Denver WFO (Weather Forecast Office, now collocated with FSL at Boulder), while RT99 encompassed a broad spectrum of NWS forecasters from WFOs across the country as well as from most of the National Centers. Many changes (some still underway) have come from these exercises, as will be summarized in this paper.
The latest major effort, following some of the changes to D3D after RT99, has been to offer the D3D application to sites that may be in a position to use it with real-time data, beginning with some of the participant sites in the RT99 exercise. We will give an update of the current status of D3D distribution and operational use, which should fit nicely with some of the papers in the session that will detail the experiences with D3D thus far at the different WFOs. Finally, we will present our future plans with the D3D effort.
Supplementary URL: http://d3d.fsl.noaa.gov
Joint Session 5, Visualization: D3D Overview and Operational Use (Joint with AWIPS and IIPS)
Monday, 14 January 2002, 1:30 PM-3:45 PM
Next paper