Met.3D: Interactive 3D ensemble visualization for rapid exploration of atmospheric simulation data

<p>Visualization is an important and ubiquitous tool in the daily work of atmospheric researchers and weather forecasters to analyse data from simulations and observations. Visualization research has made much progress in recent years, in particular with respect to techniques for ensemble data, interactivity, 3D depiction, and feature-detection. Transfer of new techniques into the atmospheric sciences, however, is slow.</p><p>Met.3D (https://met3d.wavestoweather.de) is an open-source research software aiming at making novel interactive 3D and ensemble visualization techniques accessible to the atmospheric community. Since its first public release in 2015, Met.3D has been used in multiple visualization research projects targeted at atmospheric science applications, and also has evolved into a feature-rich visual analysis tool facilitating rapid exploration of atmospheric simulation data. The software is based on the concept of “building a bridge” between “traditional” 2D visual analysis techniques and interactive 3D techniques and allows users to analyse their data using combinations of 2D maps and cross-sections, meteorological diagrams and 3D techniques including direct volume rendering, isosurfaces and trajectories, all combined in an interactive 3D context.</p><p>This PICO will provide an overview of the Met.3D project and highlight recent additions and improvements to the software. We will show several examples of how the combination of 2D and 3D visualization elements in an interactive context can be used to explore atmospheric simulation data, including the analysis of forecast errors, analysis of synoptic-scale features including jet-streams and fronts, and analysis of forecast uncertainty in ensemble forecasts.</p>

Ensemble Visualization of Bottlenecks in Planar Flow Networks

The problem of finding bottlenecks in flow networks often appears in real world applicationslike production planning, factory layout, flow related physical approaches and even cyber security. This work introduces intuitive visual mechanisms to enable domain experts and users to visually analyzestable regions of a network and identify critical transitions. Those transitions form a varyingbottleneck front for different configurations of network restraints. To tackle this problem, this workenhances the comparability of different network configurations by utilizing ensemble visualizationtechniques. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by showing how this enables users toevaluate the progress of different bottlenecks and individual regions in a flow network.

Three-dimensional visualization of ensemble weather forecasts – Part 1: The visualization tool Met.3D (version 1.0)

We present "Met.3D", a new open-source tool for the interactive three-dimensional (3-D) visualization of numerical ensemble weather predictions. The tool has been developed to support weather forecasting during aircraft-based atmospheric field campaigns; however, it is applicable to further forecasting, research and teaching activities. Our work approaches challenging topics related to the visual analysis of numerical atmospheric model output – 3-D visualization, ensemble visualization and how both can be used in a meaningful way suited to weather forecasting. Met.3D builds a bridge from proven 2-D visualization methods commonly used in meteorology to 3-D visualization by combining both visualization types in a 3-D context. We address the issue of spatial perception in the 3-D view and present approaches to using the ensemble to allow the user to assess forecast uncertainty. Interactivity is key to our approach. Met.3D uses modern graphics technology to achieve interactive visualization on standard consumer hardware. The tool supports forecast data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and can operate directly on ECMWF hybrid sigma-pressure level grids. We describe the employed visualization algorithms, and analyse the impact of the ECMWF grid topology on computing 3-D ensemble statistical quantities. Our techniques are demonstrated with examples from the T-NAWDEX-Falcon 2012 (THORPEX – North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment) campaign.

3-D visualization of ensemble weather forecasts – Part 1: The visualization tool Met.3D (version 1.0)

We present Met.3D, a new open-source tool for the interactive 3-D visualization of numerical ensemble weather predictions. The tool has been developed to support weather forecasting during aircraft-based atmospheric field campaigns, however, is applicable to further forecasting, research and teaching activities. Our work approaches challenging topics related to the visual analysis of numerical atmospheric model output – 3-D visualization, ensemble visualization, and how both can be used in a meaningful way suited to weather forecasting. Met.3D builds a bridge from proven 2-D visualization methods commonly used in meteorology to 3-D visualization by combining both visualization types in a 3-D context. We address the issue of spatial perception in the 3-D view and present approaches to using the ensemble to allow the user to assess forecast uncertainty. Interactivity is key to our approach. Met.3D uses modern graphics technology to achieve interactive visualization on standard consumer hardware. The tool supports forecast data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and can operate directly on ECMWF hybrid sigma-pressure level grids. We describe the employed visualization algorithms, and analyse the impact of the ECMWF grid topology on computing 3-D ensemble statistical quantitites. Our techniques are demonstrated with examples from the T-NAWDEX-Falcon 2012 campaign.