CoreNavigator
From CwWiki
Visualize, Browse and Serve Marine Sediment Core Data in 3D
Chris Jenkins*1, Sam Briuglio*3, Mark Kulp*2,3, Paul Morin*4, Andrew Johnson*5
1. INSTAAR, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder CO, 80309-04502 (chris.jenkins@colorado.edu); 2. Dept. Geology Geophysics, Univ. New Orleans; 3. Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences, Univ. New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70148; 4. Dept Geology Geophysics, Univ. Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0219; 5. Electronic Visualization Lab., Univ. Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL 60607
CoreNavigator is a 3D visual indexer of complex core-stratigraphic sedimentary datasets and databases. It is designed so that researchers can comprehend the data availability, stratigraphic trends, and geographic distribution of the core datasets. Also from the same platform they can drill down to many levels of the data and even launch applications to treat the data. Currently, it is a research-oriented prototype, serving small amounts of data over the Web. It is also being used on desktop and high-end visual displays such as the Geowall for educational and research purposes.
In its present state, the visualizations are computed as Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML 2) projects directly from a database. The major source database is dbSEABED, a large, worldwide database of marine sediment cores, but data from the IODP database Janus is also operational. Topography from the GEBCO 2001 data compilation serves as the default topography relative to which the cores are plotted.
CoreNavigator has been described as a "3D spatial data visualizer", a "palantir", "visual database indexer" and a "digital information gadget". It differs from existing similar applications in being non-commercial, designed for serving on the internet, and is versatile. For example, users may add their own core data, infrastructure, geophysics, or oceanography by editing the VRML, or importing code via the generating script. The visualization is zoomable, manipulatable, queryable, and re-scalable.
The core data is located geographically and in elevation, is coloured by sediment texture or marked grey if only other more abstract data is available. In other implementations different colour-codings can be adopted, for instance in the case of lake, ice or coastal soils projects.
Active internet links are developed throughout the 3D structure to: graphic corelogs and Images, web pages showing the original field work, detailed analyses of texture and grain types, metadata and publications, to Google Earth for geographic context, and to CoreLyzer in Corewall.
Note 1. Online Example.
The first Core Navigator v2.0 project is available online at: ODP Leg199 VRML
A Google Earth entry to the same project is available online at: ODP Leg199 Zipped GoogleEarth
Technical details for viewing the project are given below.
Note 2. Acknowledgements.
We gratefully acknowledge support of this project by the National Science Foundation, the CoreWall project, INSTAAR (University of Colorado), and the US Geological Survey. Also the assistance of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP).
Note 3. Technical aspects of using CoreNavigator.
a. Depending on local Machine/OS/Browser/Plugin configuration, the project may run by clicking on the cwWiki URL, or it may be necessary to download the file and start from a local address. b. The project was designed to: INTEL architecture, Win XP OS, Netscape Browser with Cortona 4.2, Mozilla Browser with Adobe SVG Viewer 3.0, and Google Earth 3 (OpenGL). However, it works with all 3 major browsers on PC and Mac (OSX) architectures. c. Graphics card performance is very important to manipulating the 3D structures, especially at high numbers of cores in a project. d. A graphic that explains the various manipulations of the visualisations is at: CoreNavigator HowTo Panel e. The graphical core logs are designed to meet the demands of a global integration of seabed data over thousands of diverse datasets (dbSEABED). The rationale will be published in: Rothwell, RG (Ed), New techniques in sediment core analysis, Geological Society of London Special Publication, vol. 267. The design is driven by two major considerations, that at any level in a core there may be conflicting but valid values of a parameter (such as grainsize), and that graphical core logs need to adapt to data sparsity. f. The facility will continue to be developed through 2007, and research collaborations are invited.
Please send feedback to Chris Jenkins, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder CO 80309, USA
