Visualization of high dynamic range data in geosciences

High dynamic range data, the magnitudes of which span a wide range of scales, are pervasive in the geosciences. Simulations or measurements of many important geophysical processes, such as earthquakes, mantle temperature fluctuations, generate various high dynamic range data sets, in the form of volume or surface. Effective visualization of such datasets is vital for understanding such complex geophysical phenomena and poses a new challenge for both geoscientists and visualization scientists. We describe the general aspects of high dynamic range datasets in the geophysical sciences and provide three case studies of visualizing such data using the techniques we have developed recently. They include: (1) visualizing the Earth’s mantle structures using high dynamic volume volume visualization (HDR VolVis); (2) visualizing surface ruptures during earth quakes using an interference-based method; (3) visualizing tsunami waves again using interference-based method. To improve the performance of visualizing these datasets, which are usually large in size, modern commodity graphics hardware are leveraged to provide simultaneously efficient simulation and visualization.