Oceanographic Data Profile Analysis Using Interactive Computer Graphics Techniques

The analysis of oceanographic data often involves visual comparison of a collected data profile with other collected, historical, or simulated profiles. Using conventional graphics techniques, geometrical data comparisons involving such operations as sliding data curves (i.e., viewing different sections of the entire data profile), rescaling data, expanding curve sections, and overlaying curves require extensive, tedious replotting. Using airborne marine magnetic anomaly data as an example, this paper will show how software, designed using newly available interactive computer graphics tools, allows the scientific data analyst to perform, rapidly and easily, this type of geometrical data profile analysis.