Visualization of satellite derived time-series datasets using computer graphics and computer animation

Abstract

The German Remote Sensing Data Centre (DFD) of the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) is operationally generating remote-sensing based time series datasets. These datasets can be used for example for environmental, climatological and atmospherical research. Bearing in mind the enormous amount of data already generated at DLR from today's missions, even with a comfortable search-engine like ISIS (provided by DLR) it is a major problem to identify those datasets most suitable for a specific research task. Looking into the future, data quantities will increase with new missions like ENVISAT. Therefore, it appears essential to provide the user-community with efficient tools to explore and evaluate these time series-datasets. Visualization forms the most efficient way to explore the contents of vast data quantities and to identify the subsets showing the phenomena of interest in a relatively short time. Synthesis with secondary remote sensing data for visualization offers the possibility of multidimensional data exploration. Finally, visualization is essential for the presentation of a projects purpose and its results. Data gaps in time-series form a problem in visualization as they are prohibitive for stable movement in computer animation. For this reason different interpolation techniques have been developed primarily for atmospheric sensors and now prove to be a valuable tool for interpolation of other remote sensing datasets. A video presentation showing examples of films created at DLR are given.