Abstract
In three-dimensional (3D) digital Earth environment, there are many problems when using the existing methods to express the ocean current, such as uneven distribution of seed points, density leap in scale change and messy visualization. In this paper, a new dynamic visualization method of multi-hierarchy flow field based on particle system is proposed; Specifically, three typical spherical uniform algorithms are studied and compared, and the streamline becoming denser from the equator to the poles on globe is eliminated by placing seed points using Marsaglia polar method as the most efficient. In addition, a viewport-adaptive adjustment algorithm is proposed, which realizes that the density of particles is always suitable to any viewing distance during continuous zooming. To solve the visual representation deficiency, we design a new dynamic pattern to enhance the expression and perception of current, which makes up for the shortcoming of the arrow glyph and streamline methods. Finally, a prototype of GPU parallel and viewport coherence is achieved, whose feasibility and effectiveness are verified by a series of experiments. The results show that our method can not only represent ocean current data clearly and efficiently, but also has outstanding uniformity and hierarchy effect.
Highlights
In marine science the term ocean current refers to the large-scale and relatively regular flow of seawater, which has an important impact on global heat transport, weather and climate, sediment transport and marine transport
To improve the visualization effect and realize the multi-hierarchy expression of ocean flow field in the 3D digital earth environment, we propose a dynamic flow visualization method based on particle system
Our dynamic visualization prototype of ocean current is developed based on Cesium and written in WebGL
Summary
In marine science the term ocean current refers to the large-scale and relatively regular flow of seawater, which has an important impact on global heat transport, weather and climate, sediment transport and marine transport. Direct visualization uses repeatable icons such as arrow glyphs on a regular grid to represent the flow field at different positions [3]; it is more suitable for the static display of two-dimensional (2D) flow fields because of its simple expression and fewer calculation characteristics. This method has the disadvantage of visual complexity and lack of visual coherency. As the need to generate noise and cumbersome convolution operation, texture-based methods are mainly used to display generalized flow fields and are rarely used in cartography
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