PVES: Powered Visualizer for Earth Environmental Science

In this paper, we propose a powered visualizer for Earth environmental science (PVES) which can accommodate three-dimensional (3D) datasets. Though a data integration system called the information fusion reactor for Earth environmental science (IFRES) is being developed at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, PVES is a part of the IFRES contribution to the global Earth observation system of systems (GEOSS). Three key functions are implemented. The first is a rather naive function that allows users to visualize 3D raw data through virtual reality modeling language. Second, the user can specify an arbitrary curve over the 3D dataset and then visualize its cross section. This has been proven to be very powerful for 3D analyses of flow phenomena. Third, users can easily specify various kinds of related data in IFRES to overlay on the cross section. This function also helps users to understand the flow phenomena deeply through the fusion of information, atmospheric infrared sounder (AIRS) data and its reanalysis data are provided as examples of applicable data in this paper; AIRS data is a satellite sensor product, and reanalysis data is a type of model outputs. We also present some observations extracted with the PVES and confirm effectiveness and usefulness of PVES.