Better late than never, and from now on in a printer friendly format…

VirtualGeography is a collection of interesting snippets from all over the shop, dealing with industry issues concerning the computer based visualisation of geography and a few other associated (or otherwise) interesting bits and pieces. You are receiving this either because you subscribed to VirtualGeography or you have had recent dealings with VizMAP Pty Ltd. If you do not wish to receive further instalments of VirtualGeography, just click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this e-mail. 

It is planned that a new VirtualGeography is pushed out every now and then when I’ve collated enough interesting bits and pieces, which shouldn’t be too big a drain on your mailbox if you’re not already subscribed (of course it won’t be a drain on your mailbox if you ARE subscribed, either ). The regularity of the distribution may vary depending on what else is going on at VizMAP at the time. If you know of anyone who might like to get VirtualGeography, feel free to forward this to them and ask them to subscribe. By the way, subscription and unsubscription details are at the bottom (click here).

So, g’day to all you enthusiasts requiring to visualise and simulate both urban and rural geographic information (GIS), cartography, photogrammetry, remote sensing, digital elevation modelling (DEM) and general mapping.

By the spelling of "Visualisation" you may have already guessed that we’re not US based – that’s a good thing, or at least not a bad thing. This comes to you from Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia, where it’s beautiful one day and perfect the next.

The link between visualisation and mapping may seem a little esoteric if this is your first encounter with this sort of stuff, but let me tell you, the bond is significant… but enough of that: on with the show… I hope you like it. Any feedback you might have is highly appreciated. E-mail me hereto make your comments. Enjoy… Graeme Brooke VizMAP Pty Ltd

P.S. You’ll need an active internet connection to view any images that are in the content. We’ve done it this way to keep the size of the e-mail to a minimum.

Since not everyone is aware of how or why a traditional 2D designer would want to incorporate media-rich 3D into their documents, I wanted to describe several good examples:

– Technical manuals for assembling products like a computer or a piece of equipment, are traditionally 2D sketches with written instructions, often distributed as PDF. An Atmosphere-enhanced version would be a PDF document that is embedded with 3D animations or interactive parts that show you how to assemble the equipment. The user could see the objects from different angles, see how it fits together, hear the snapping sound when it clicks together, etc. 2D instructions would still accompany the 3D, but the 3D would replace the flat sketch.

– Architectural walkthroughs to show the client their new home or office n a PDF, are a great professional application. The advantage over line drawings and sketches is obvious. Also the user could have the ability to make minor changes to the 3D layout or simple things like wall colors. All right inside of a PDF document.

– Have you ever seen one of the little books with the acetate layovers that show the Parthenon as it is now, and with the overlay, as it was in ancient times? PDF lets you achieve something similar using layers. But in a PDF embedded with Atmosphere someone could tour the Parthenon in 3D as it is now and then switch views, to see how it was at it’s glory. And read along with the accompanying text.

– In Simulation and Training the primary media is usually an operations manual, often distributed as a PDF. Imagine a PDF training manual for controlling a nuclear reactor: Press the blue button, then the yellow button and then pull the lever. Now Imagine an Atmosphere enhanced PDF that gives you the written instructions and also lets you actually try the sequence. If you do it incorrectly, the reactor goes critical. If you follow the sequence in the right order and timed correctly, the control rods are reinserted and the nuclear reactor powers down. 

"NVIDIA’s scene graph is intended to empower developers to quickly create sophisticated and thoroughly modern high-performance 3D graphics applications," said Dan Vivoli, executive vice president of marketing at NVIDIA.  "NVSG is highly extensible, GPU-centric, shader aware, operating system and graphics API independent, and cluster and multiprocessing/multi-threading aware.  With all of these attributes, developers can expect NVSG to be a contemporary and future proof scene graph technology." 

NVSG may be used to develop high-performance 3D applications for visual simulation, manufacturing, simulation-based design, scientific visualization, broadcast video, architectural walk-throughs, and computer-aided design, among others.  By offering the most advanced features and innovative techniques, NVSG is designed to enable developers to make optimal use of both NVIDIA Quadro® graphics hardware performance and sophisticated feature set.  For added flexibility, usability, and operating system independency, NVSG currently operates on top of the OpenGL® application programming interfaces (API) in either 32-or 64-bit Microsoft® Windows® or Linux operating system environments.  NVSG is architected to allow for the integration of other rendering platforms such as Microsoft® DirectX®.

Version 2.0.1 contains increased efficiency and new options for several nodes including Build DEM, Import CIB and GeoTIFF, and significant speed improvments for several nodes which create integrated triangulated irregular networks (ITIN’s), the highly efficient terrain surface representation developed by TerraSim. 

Enhancements have also been made to TEdit, the TerraTools feature editor, TAedit, the TerraTools feature appearance editor, and the OmniWizardTM which was introduced in 2.0.

TerraSim’s TerraTools Plug-in for SOCET SET® has been updated to support the latest BAE Systems SOCET SET 5.1 release, with continued support for earlier versions of SOCET SET beginning with 4.4.0. 

TerraTools users can look forward to an upcoming release of TSGFlyTM , the TerraTools visual database viewer, with many new features including flood plane visualization, 3D measurement tools, camera zoom, and point labeling. In addition, a release of TerraTours® 2.0 with significant enhancements for advanced geospatial query and database linkage is scheduled for the 4th quarter, 2004. 

Version 2.0.1 of TerraTools, along with revised 2.0 Users manuals, Tutorial manuals, and Batch mode manuals have been shipped at no charge to TerraTools users under a TerraSim annual maintenance agreement. Version 2.0.1 is the current release for all new TerraSim customers and training classes for version 2.X have been revamped to reflect significant TerraTools improvements.

Introduction

The World Energy Congress (WEC) was held in Sydney, 5th – 9th September, 2004. A major exhibitor at the WEC was "Invest Australia", an initiative of the Australian Federal Government (see http://www.investaustralia.gov.au/) and had representatives from Australia’s key players in the "Energy Industry".

They were The Australian Sustainable Industry Research Centre (ASERC), The Centre for Energy and Greenhouse Technologies (CEGT), The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), The NSW Department of Energy, Utilities and Sustainability (DEUS), The NSW Department of State and Regional Development (DSRD), The Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA), Invest Australia, Ilum-a-Lite, Latrobe Valley, Northern Territory Government, Queensland Government, Department of Primary Industries and Resources, South Australia (SA), The Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau (SCVB), Surpac Minex Group (SURPAC), Sydney Gas Ltd, T3Energy, UCC Energy Pty Ltd and Western Australia Department of Industry and Resources.

The Queensland Government component of the booth consisted of a high-end Hewlett Packard graphics workstation driving a 48" plasma screen with a smaller flatpanel monitor running in conjunction. The plasma screen was also hooked up to a DVD player thus enabling both computer driven interactive "fly throughs" and "canned" demos on CD and DVD. 

VizMAP was there as the technical consultant for the Queensland Government, having just completed and delivered 4 interactive 3D Fly-through databases of Queensland’s Surat Energy Province. These were commissioned by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines (QDNRM) to be demonstrated at the WEC (and subsequently to interested investors).

Surat Energy Province

Located in southern Queensland, the Surat Basin contains enormous energy resources in the form of thermal coal and gas, and remains largely undeveloped. The region has the potential to support large-scale mining and energy developments and become a significant regional energy and industrial province.

To realise this potential and create the "Surat Energy Resources Province" of the future, major infrastructure investment is firstly required.

The Queensland Government and Invest Australia are working together to promote the potential of the Surat Energy Resources Province. The objective is to pave the way for the significant capital investment required to facilitate development projects in the Surat Basin area.

As custodian of the states natural resources, the Queensland Government has a responsibility to promote sustainable development that benefits the entire Queensland community. The Surat Energy Resources Province provides an excellent opportunity to invest in Queensland’s long-term economic future.

The capital investment, ongoing operating expenditure and payments associated with the long-term development of a large-scale domestic and export thermal coal industry would create thousands of jobs and provide a massive stimulus to the Queensland economy.

More broadly, the combined public and private investment in mines, railways, power stations and coal seam gas projects – together with the availability of coal seam gas water – is seen as a catalyst to general development activity. The Surat Energy Resources Province offers a chance to foster widespread advancement across the state’s economy and society in a similar way to the development of central Queensland over the last 40 years.

The Fly-Throughs using TerraTours

VizMAP was engaged by QDNRM to produce an interactive, "virtual", fly-through of the Surat coal basin, based on a complete orthorectified, colour-matched and mosaiced set of colourised Landsat 5 imagery (~12.5m pixels) and the Geosciences Australia 9" (~250m) DEM of the area. The subject area extended from Gladstone in the north to Brisbane in the south (a distance of about 450km) and west to encompass Miles, Theodore and Moura in the west (an east-west extent of about 350km).

The subject area was broken into three components. The eventual "Brisbane" database extends west from Stradbroke Island (off Brisbane) to include Millmerran in the west and north to Miles. The second "Wandoan" database encompasses most of the Surat Basin, from Wilkie Creek in the south to Moura in the north. The third database, "Gladstone", allows the user to fly north through the Bowen Basin from Dawson to Moura then east to the Port and City of Gladstone. A supplementary database was produced of just the Moura Coal Mine (50km north-south) using orthorectified aerial photography with a 1m pixel and a 5m DEM derived from ground surveys over the mine.

Supplemental to the basic "ortho-on-DEM" fly through were a number of GIS datasets, HTML data sheets, digital photographs, MPEG movies, PDF documents, maps, plans, imagery, topographical detail, etc. that were built into the databases as "queriable" data, i.e. the databases can be "interrogated" whilst the fly-through is being performed to return these documents. 

Visually, GIS polygons for coal basin extents, petroleum leases, mining leases, coal resource layers and mineral development licenses have also been incorporated as colour coded translucent "walls". These are all able to be interrogated to determine the original GIS attribution. 

Also, the 1:100K mapping layer and geological GIS layer have been incorporated as "subsurfaces". Using TerraTours "X-Ray" feature, one can drill down through the ground surface to query these layers to return the local geology and the available topographic mapping in the area.

Conclusion

The visual databases produced by VizMAP for QDNRM were seen to be a resounding success at the WEC, attracting many visitors and potential investors, drawn in by the 48" plasma screen: impressed with the clarity, smooth frame rate and extraordinary detail of the Virtual Surat Energy Province. 

If you would like more information on this project, let VizMAP know

And then, one dark day in 1972, with the advent of the pocket calculator, the slide rule went the way of the abacus. Why fiddle around with the arcane log scales and indexes required to use a slide rule when an inexpensive calculator required nothing more of its owner than the ability to push a few buttons?

But while a bright yellow plastic Pickett slide rule may no longer peek out of every engineer’s shirt pocket, these pre-silicon marvels haven’t disappeared. There are web pages, international organizations and entire businesses devoted to the collection and care of slide rules. 

Now, a new exhibit at Purdue University is drawing (small) crowds of people curious to see celebrity slide rules. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Jerry Ross, along with about 200 other Purdue University alumni, have contributed their personal slide rules to the exhibit at their alma mater. 

"For centuries anyone who built anything of any magnitude would have had to use a slide rule," said James Alleman, a professor of civil engineering who began collecting the slide rules from Purdue alumni 15 years ago. "The slide rule ruled." 

The exhibit, on the first floor of the university’s Potter Engineering Center, features slide rules made of metal, wood, bamboo, paper and plastic, ranging in length from a few inches to 7 feet, neatly arranged in a series of panels that carefully document the history of the computational devices. 

The exhibit starts with Scottish mathematician John Napier, who in 1614 discovered the logarithm with which multiplication and division could be conducted using addition and subtraction. 

"(T)here is nothing that is so troublesome to mathematical practice, nor that doth more molest and hinder calculators, than the multiplications, divisions, square and cubical extractions of great numbers, which besides the tedious expense of time are for the most part subject to many slippery errors," Napier wrote in a book he published under the Latin title Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio (Description of the Marvelous Rule of Logarithms). 

Six years later, English mathematician Edmund Gunter created a number line in which the positions of numbers were proportional to Napier’s logarithms, and in 1632 fellow countryman William Oughtred used Gunter’s approach and invented the first slide rule. 

But, as slide rule collector Eric Marcotte points out on his dizzyingly thorough website, it took a considerable length of time to get from these early prototypes to the modern slide rule, which can be traced back most directly to Amédée Mannheim, who developed the basic 10-inch design and scale arrangement in 1850. 

Alleman said he began collecting slide rules out of personal interest and for a display to coincide with civil engineering’s centennial celebration in 1987. He ruefully admits his own first slide rule isn’t in the collection.

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As they get closer they can see that the tree is draped with rasher upon rasher of bacon. There’s smoked bacon, crispy bacon, life-giving juicy nearly- raw bacon, all sorts.

"Hey, Pepe" says the first bloke "Ees a bacon tree!!! We’re saved!!!"

"You’re right, amigo!" says Pepe.

So Pepe goes on ahead and runs up to the tree salivating at the prospect of food. But as he gets to within five feet of the tree, there’s the sound of machine gun fire, and he is shot down in a hail of bullets.

His friend quickly drops down on the sand and calls across to the dying Pepe.

"Pepe!! Pepe!! Que pasa hombre?"

With his dying breath Pepe calls out… "Ugh, run, amigo, run!! Ees not a Bacon Tree!"

"Ees… a…. Ham bush"