Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2002, Vol. 57 ›› Issue (7s): 37-43.doi: 10.11821/xb20027s006

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Research on Geo-Process Based Computation Visualization: A Case Study of Flood Simulation

GONG Jianhua1, LIN Hui2, ZHANG Jianting3   

  1. 1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
    2. Joint Lab. for Geo-Information Sciences, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China;
    3. School of Computer Science, The University of Oklahoma, USA
  • Received:2002-05-20 Revised:2002-10-12 Online:2002-12-25 Published:2002-12-25
  • Supported by:

    Knowledge Innovatiion Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. KZCXZ-308

Abstract:

This paper addresses two kinds of objects in geographical systems in which geo-process events occur. They are base objects and event objects respectively. Base objects, as fundamental framework and conditions for some events happening, are ones that exit in geographical environments, and will not change entirely within an observational period. Event objects are ones that do not exist until some events take place. Event objects change dynamically with space and time, and have a limited life span. Unlike base objects, research on event objects are less highlighted by traditional geographical information systems, especially on aspects of data model of spatial pattern and dynamic 3-D graphical representation. The conceptual framework of base objects and event objects are beneficial to designing data model in simulation and visualization systems. However, base objects and event objects are put forward just from a perspective of complete representation of geographical systems, other than of human-computer relationship. With regard to rapid 3-D graphic rendering, proper visual effects, and human-computer interaction in real time, scene data model should be considered essentially besides data models of base objects and event objects. Including object data base and scene data base, a system framework of computation visualization environment is then presented. The visualization environment system allows users to justify model and visualization parameters, to implement model computation and visualization by means of process steering. As a case, flood simulation is employed to establish a computation visualization environment prototype system, GeoVision, developed with Visual C++ and OpenGL. A preliminary experiment is conducted via flood model computation and 4-D visualization in the the Gaohu flood diversion area in the Puyang River, Zhejiang Province, China.

Key words: computation visualization, GIS, geo-process, flood simulation, computation steering, interaction in real time