The management of renewable resources such as commercial and recreational fisheries can be difficult due to lack of data, environmental uncertainty, and a multitude of species interactions. The data needed to manage the resource can be biological as well as economic and environmental. Biomathematical modeling can help fill in some of the gaps in the data. Stochastic modeling can approximate the effects of the environmental uncertainty. Supercomputing enables the handling of a reasonable number of interacting species. However, electronic visualization is essential for interpreting the multidimensional supercomputer results. Further, the visualization can show the resource manager how changes in management policy can effect the overall economic performance of the fishery, but also can show how sensitive the performance results are worth variations in the poorly known data parameters. An implementation of a “world within a world” vision concept permits visualization of a 3D solution surface in an inner world, which can be changed along with a corresponding change of the parameters of a 3D outer world. This implementation allows the resource manager to visualize the multidimensional resources along with parameter sensitivity of the optimal value and optimal controls.

“Visualization for Management of Renewable Resources” premiered at the Showcase exhibit at SIGGRAPH 92, Chicago.