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3D Regional Canvas for the Californias - Part 2: Web-based Educational Version
Project Abstract:
The web-based version of the Regional WorkBench Consortium's 3D Regional Canvas of the Californias is intended to provide free access to 3D visualization tools from anywhere in the world for decision-makers and educators in a wide range of disciplines including regional planning, water quality management, sustainable development, and homeland security.
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Project Goals:
The primary goal of this project is to provide educators, researchers, and the general public the ability to quickly and easily access regional data within a geographical context from both sides of the US-Mexico border, in particular the Californias.
Whereas the current functionality of the interface and the availability of regionally-relevant data within a geographical context is limited, a long-term goal is to provide access to a wide range of regional data to be used in decision support and regional policy-making. We also plan to promote our tool as a scalable model for other regions sharing the same concerns regarding managed growth and economic development.
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Research Priorities (and suggested topics for investigation):
The success of the project will initially be assessed through regular consortium meetings where user feedback will be solicited and evaluated. An online survey of user attitudes will be implemented soon. Ultimately, a built-in user-tracking feature should assist with identifying which features of the interface are in need of modification, which modules are the most frequently used, etc.
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Full Description of Project:
Now, users anywhere on the web can explore the southern California and northern Baja geo-political region in a more meaningful spatial context – as though you’re flying in an airplane. The Education Center on Computational Science and Engineering at San Diego State University has joined with the Regional WorkBench Consortium to establish an interactive web-based version (launch the site) of the spectacular 3D Regional Canvas for the Californias - Part 1.
Users are frequently more engaged in a realistic 3D space. It is what we are used to. But the cost involved in delivering a complete and fulfilling 3D fly through experience has been prohibitively high for academia. These modules are neither the first nor the best 3D fly through experiences available if you have the money, but they are possibly the best freely available web-based interactive educational fly through experiences you'll find anywhere. Still, they are prototypes designed to evoke response and stimulate dialog. We are in need of users and feedback, particularly professionals in regional planning and environmental monitoring.
The Modules
There are currently seven distinct modules designed to demonstrate various capabilities of the authoring tools. The first module is an interactive fly through of the entire 3D Regional Canvas model. The geographic are covered by this model extends from northern San Diego county to south of Ensenada, Baja, Mexico, and from the Pacific Ocean to the California/Arizona border. This dataset includes bathymetry data gathered by researchers at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and it is the same dataset (but at a lower resolution) used to provide an immersive 3D experience at the Scripps Visualization Center.
Alejandro Hinojosa, a researcher with CICESE in Baja also serving as a Research Fellow at UCSD’s Center for US-Mexico Studies, was instrumental in assembling the digital elevation model and aligning it with the aerial imagery. Shane DeGross of Telesis Corporation also provided invaluable assistance with several of the datasets, particularly the images used in the Land Use Morph module, an image morph of San Diego county land use as it has grown from 1976 through 1989 to 1999.
There are modules containing the 3D digital elevation models for three major watersheds so far; San Diego River Watershed, Otay Watershed, and the Tijuana River Watershed. It is possible to layer different bitmaps onto the digital elevation models, either using built-in layers provide by the modules, or by importing a bitmap image over the web. There is also a module for San Diego State University demonstrating the high level of detail possible in the aerial images.
The Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve (SMER) module is the first module to include a database interface to MySQL using open source JDBC drivers from FuseLight (http://www.sulake.com/fuselight/). It is our hope that real-time data from the remote weather stations at SMER will soon be available to our interface through the high-speed High-Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN, http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/) so we may begin to explore new ways to access and represent complex environmental data.
Interactive Features
Users don’t simply fly through these worlds, even though that alone might be enough for some of us. Additional interactive features include movies, slide shows, and QuickTime VR Panoramas of several locations within the Tijuana River Watershed and the San Diego River Watershed. The panoramas are a highlight of the modules. They demonstrate an additional degree of context with which the user gains greater insight into the relevant features of the environment.
Other features include clickable objects launching supplementary web pages, and objects representing the location of a particular vehicle or person, such as a researcher in the field. This is merely the beginning of what is possible interactively. Much of the development effort up to know has involved simply getting the models built and developing the navigational features of the interface. All of this needed to be developed from scratch. We consider ourselves to be in the ‘alpha’ stage of development.
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Project Participants:
Jeff Sale, San Diego State University's Education Center on Computational Science and Engineering
Alejandro Hinojosa, UCSD Center for US-Mexican Studies
John Ryan, San Diego State University Department of Geography
Rob Hutsel, San Diego River Park Foundation
Keith Pezzoli, UCSD, Regional WorkBench Consortium
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Link to Narrative:
NA
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Related Files:
File Name: 3D Regional Canvas Main Menu
File Type: imagery
Description:
Screengrab of the web-based version's main menu.
Relevant Date:
Date Entered: May 19, 2003, 5:25 pm
download file (right click and press "save as")
Related References:
3D Regional Canvas of the Californias - Part 1
http://www.regionalworkbench.org/databank/project_all.php?pid=14&pName=3D%20Regi
Reference Type: text
Description:
High-end version of the digital elevation model and aerial image of the Californias to be used by regional planning decision makers within an immersive collaborative setting at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography's Visualization Center at the Cecil and Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
Date Entered: May 19, 2003, 5:29 pm
author Alejandro Hinojosa
Education Center on Computational Science and Engineering
http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/
Reference Type: text
Description:
The mission of the Education Center on Computational Science and Engineering (ECCSE) is to foster the incorporation of high performance research tools for scientific investigation into the undergraduate curriculum. Our main goal is to better prepare learners for post-Baccalaureate activities where collaborative interdisciplinary teams, sophisticated computer tools, and effective communication are part of the research and problem solving environment.
The ECCSE is an NSF-funded partner within the Education, Outreach, and Training Thrust of the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure.
Date Entered: May 19, 2003, 5:31 pm
author Kris Stewart, ECCSE Director
3D Regional Canvas For the Californias - Part 2
http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/rwb/
Reference Type: multimedia
Description:
The Education Center on Computational Science and Engineering at San Diego State University is collaborating with the Regional WorkBench Consortium to create some exciting 3D flythrough capabilities for education on regional planning. Click one of the links below to launch a Shockwave 3D interactive flythrough of the transborder region of the Californias. This is a "pre-alpha" prototype with only limited interactivity. There will be much more interactivity to come.
Date Entered: June 2, 2003, 12:40 am
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