Distributed VIS-5D for Large Atmospheric Simulations

November 1st, 1992 - November 1st, 1993

Categories: Applications, Supercomputing, Visualization

About

A simulation of Hurricane Gilbert, using VIS-5D software, lets CAVE participants stand inside the hurricane, experiencing such phenomena as wind direction, wind speed and temperature. Summer heat builds up over Earth’s tropical oceans, and hurricanes are nature’s way of getting that heat to the top of the atmosphere where it can be radiated back into space.

With VIS-5D, CAVE participants explore datasets, which were precomputed on NCAR’s CRAY YMP, that portray the development of a heat bridge from the ocean surface to the top of the atmosphere. They also explore the resulting violent winds by releasing streamers into the air flow, by slicing through the wind vector field, by examining a volume rendering of wind speed, and by creating isosurfaces of temperature. Hurricanes are very complex phenomena, and the interactivity of VIS-5D and the CAVE help researchers understand that complexity.

This application was a part of Experiential Science in The Virtual Reality Theater venue at Supercomputing ’93.