The Development of 3-D Software to Assist the Visualization of Large and Concurrent Earthquake Data

Brandon T. Ho, Shalani R. Weerasooriya, Alejandro G. Narvaez-Colon, Tiffany Streitenberger, Dian Zhu, Trent L. Jones, Bill Addo, John Yu, Kevin R. Milner, Gabriela R. Noriega, Jozi K. Pearson, & Thomas H. Jordan

Published August 1, 2018, SCEC Contribution #8249, 2018 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #314

SCEC-VDO or the Southern California Earthquake Center Visual Display of Objects, is a software that assists in visualizing seismic and geological information for publication, education, and animation. A software created, developed, and annually improved by USEIT interns, each iteration of VDO is in support of researchers and students alike. In addition to the main goal of visualizing Rate-State earthQuake Simulator (RSQSim) catalogs, we set out to improve various facets of VDO in order to improve the overall quality and experience of the software. To best manage the changes we hope to see, we divide ourselves into sub-groups that best fit our skills and various goals. Our main points of focus included creating and integrating a dual-window for earthquake catalog loading, further implementing statefulness, reinstating the earthquake shakemaps plugin, enhancing VDO’s menus, improving loading time, making a web-based VDO project viewer, and conceptualizing mockups for future VDO features and alterations. A demo of dual-window loading of earthquake catalogs provides a glimpse of users being able to compare and contrast separate visuals side by side in VDO’s 3D environment. Statefulness now captures the various plugins and parameters that were activated during a user’s prior session with the software. VDO menus have been made more intuitive and uniform across the application. Loading time upon launching the software has been reduced by several seconds. The shake-map plugin has now been made functional and less visually obstructive. Using VTK/VTP, a web based application allows SCEC VDO models to be more accessible to the public. Lastly, based on collected observations of using the program, visual mock-ups of future alterations were created and can be implemented throughout upcoming years of interns.

Key Words
SCEC-VDO, visualization, software, rupture, view, display

Citation
Ho, B. T., Weerasooriya, S. R., Narvaez-Colon, A. G., Streitenberger, T., Zhu, D., Jones, T. L., Addo, B., Yu, J., Milner, K. R., Noriega, G. R., Pearson, J. K., & Jordan, T. H. (2018, 08). The Development of 3-D Software to Assist the Visualization of Large and Concurrent Earthquake Data. Poster Presentation at 2018 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Communication, Education, and Outreach (CEO)