Visualization Techniques for Applications of High-resolution Numerical Weather Models

Visualization is a method of computing by which the enormous bandwidth and processing power of the human visual (eye-brain) system becomes an integral part of extracting knowledge from complex data. In that regard, our previous work has discussed methods of appropriate mapping of user goals to the design of pictorial content by considering both the underlying data characteristics and the (human) perception of the visualization (Treinish, 1999). However, the scaling of traditional data sources and introduction of new applications challenges the effectiveness of conventional visualization methods. Consider, for example, rapid execution (e.g., 10 to 30 times faster than real-time) of mesocale weather models operating at cloud-scale resolution. Earlier we illustrated that there is a mismatch between this rate of data generation and the ability to utilize the model results with traditional twodimensional techniques (Treinish and Rothfusz, 1997). Introduction of three-dimensional visualization is only a partial solution because typical methods can easily fail to capture the salient characteristics of such simulations.