A System for Real-Time Spatio-Temporal 3-D Data Visualization in Underwater Robotic Exploration

This paper reports the development of a real-time human-computer interface (HCI) system that enables a human operator to more effectively utilize the large volume of quantitative data (navigation, scientific, and vehicle status) generated in real-time by the sensor suites of underwater ro botic vehicles. The system provides interactive 3-D graphical interfaces that display, under user control, the quantitative spatial and temporal sensor data presently available to pilots and users only as two-dimensional plots and numerical dis plays. The system can presently display real-time bathymetric renderings of the sea-floor based upon vehicle navigation and sonar sensor data; vehicle trajectory data; a variety of scalar valued sensor data; and geo-referenced targets and waypoints. We report the accuracy of the real-time navigation and bathymetric sonar data processing by comparing the real-time sonar bathymetry of our test tank floor to a high-resolution laser scan of the same tank floor. The real-time sonar bathymetry is shown to compare favorably to the laser scan data