The design of a dual wide angle visual cue simulator and the analysis of multiaxis projection equipment
Dual cockpit wide angle visual cue simulator design, discussing sky-earth-sun projector with four axis gimbal drive
SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Dual cockpit wide angle visual cue simulator design, discussing sky-earth-sun projector with four axis gimbal drive
In 1990, Sterling Software, Inc., developed the Flow Analysis Software Toolkit (FAST) for NASA Ames on contract. FAST is a workstation based modular analysis and visualization tool. It is used to visualize and animate grids and grid oriented data, typically generated by finite difference, finite element and other analytical methods. FAST is now available through COSMIC, NASA's software storehouse.
Lunar geology, crater, and volcanic feature analysis from Apollo 10 visual observations and photointerpretations
The Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure (Giovanni) is an online tool developed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC), one of 12 NASA Science Mission Directorate Data Centers (DAACs) to analyze and visualize NASA remote sensing and model data without downloading data and software. As of this writing, over 2000 Earth satellite and model variables are available in Giovanni, including several well-known NASA satellite missions (e.g., TRMM, GPM) and projects (e.g., MERRA-2, GPCP). There are twenty-two plots provided by Giovanni that can be used to analyze, compare, and explore Earth data across disciplines. Results can be shared with colleagues and downloaded for further analysis. Giovanni has helped publish over 3000 referral papers over the years. As open science policies roll in, data integrity has become a major challenge for Giovanni and other tools. For integrity, both data and workflows must be transparent. FAIR-compliant data, including input, intermediate, and result products, as well as their associated statistics, metadata, and information, are needed. The NASA Data Product Development Guide for Data Producers provides a key resource on how to develop FAIR-compliant data products. Data quality information is also needed from data producers and analysis services like Giovanni. The workflow part is quite challenging and requires workflow management improvements, such as recording workflows and making them available to users. In this presentation, we will discuss the data integrity challenges in Giovanni.
The microscopic understanding of probing and controlling molecular chirality is of considerable interest. Numerous spectroscopic techniques are capable of monitoring molecular asymmetry and its consequences, ranging from the infrared to the X-ray regime. Resonant X-rays have long been used to investigate local atomic sites within molecules thanks to the localized nature of core electronic transitions. These techniques can be used to determine the extent to which chirality is a local versus a delocalized property. However, how to systematically partition dichroic contributions from the point of view of electronic structure simulations remains an open question. Here, we introduce the concept of chiral population analysis that connects chirality to the atomic orbital picture. In analogy with Mulliken population analysis, which assigns charges to atomic orbitals, chiral populations allow the dichroic response to be distributed among the participating atomic orbitals. This decomposition can be further visualized in real space by representing it in terms of isosurface plots, providing an intuitive way to connect the dichroic response to its origins. Thus chiral population analysis can be particularly useful to assess the extent to which a given electronic transition is sensitive to chirality as a local or global feature of the molecular geometry.
Choice reaction time to visual stimuli - analysis of major theoretical positions to perceptual recognition theories
The DataHub addresses four areas of significant need: scientific visualization and analysis; science data management; interactions in a distributed, heterogeneous environment; and knowledge-based assistance for these functions. The fundamental innovation embedded within the DataHub is the integration of three technologies, videlicet knowledge-based expert systems, science visualization, and science data management. With the DataHub concept, science investigators are able to apply a more complete solution to all nodes of a distributed system.
Visualization tools are being developed to meet the challenges of mission planning and data analysis presented by the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program. ISTP encompasses a large number of spacecraft, multiple ground-based observatories, and several theoretical investigations, with the goal of understanding the global behavior of the solar wind/magnetosphere/ionosphere system. The tools include three-dimensional displays of key boundaries in geospace along with spacecraft trajectories, which can be animated and synchronized to universal time. Magnetic field models and MHD simulation results can be invoked to reveal the magnetic topology or to identify magnetic conjunctions between spacecraft and/or ground-based facilities. Simultaneous displays of satellite trajectories, spacecraft-borne observations, and model predictions are available to facilitate data processing and interpretation efforts. The current status of these tools is described, and their implementation at the ISTP Science Planning and Operations Facility and distribution to the entire ISTP community are discussed.
The DataHub addresses four areas of significant needs: scientific visualization and analysis; science data management; interactions in a distributed, heterogeneous environment; and knowledge-based assistance for these functions. The fundamental innovation embedded within the DataHub is the integration of three technologies, viz. knowledge-based expert systems, science visualization, and science data management. This integration is based on a concept called the DataHub. With the DataHub concept, science investigators are able to apply a more complete solution to all nodes of a distributed system. Both computational nodes and interactives nodes are able to effectively and efficiently use the data services (access, retrieval, update, etc), in a distributed, interdisciplinary information system in a uniform and standard way. This allows the science investigators to concentrate on their scientific endeavors, rather than to involve themselves in the intricate technical details of the systems and tools required to accomplish their work. Thus, science investigators need not be programmers. The emphasis on the definition and prototyping of system elements with sufficient detail to enable data analysis and interpretation leading to information. The DataHub includes all the required end-to-end components and interfaces to demonstrate the complete concept.
Contour trees describe the topology of level sets in scalar fields and are widely used in topological data analysis and visualization. A main challenge of utilizing contour trees for large-scale scientific data is their computation at scale using highperformance computing. To address this challenge, recent work has introduced distributed hierarchical contour trees for distributed computation and storage of contour trees. However, effective use of these distributed structures in analysis and visualization requires subsequent computation of geometric properties and branch decomposition to support contour extraction and exploration. In this work, we introduce distributed algorithms for augmentation, hypersweeps, and branch decomposition that enable parallel computation of geometric properties, and support the use of distributed contour trees as query structures for scientific exploration. Finally, we evaluate the parallel performance of these algorithms and apply them to identify and extract important contours for scientific visualization.
Distributed Resources for the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Advanced Management (DREAM) is a proposed system that will enable data from an infinite number of diverse sources to be organized and accessed from anywhere using any handheld or other computer device. The approach offers a powerful roadmap for the creation and integration of a unified knowledge base of an entire ecosystem, including its many geophysical, geographical, social, political, agricultural, energy, transportation, and cyber aspects. The resulting aggregation of data has the potential to generate an informational universe of unprecedented size that has never before been possible due to the prohibitive costs, managerial complexity, and technical barriers associated with ever-changing exponential-growth data flows. We envision that DREAM will accelerate discovery by enabling climate researchers, among other types of researchers, to manage, analyze, and visualize data from earth-scale measurements and simulations. DREAM’s success will be built on proven components that leverage existing services and resources. A key building block for DREAM will be the ESGF, chaired by Dean N. Williams. Expanding on the existing ESGF, the project will ensure that the access, storage, movement, and analysis of the large quantities of data that are processed and produced by diverse science projects can be dynamically distributed with proper resource management. Much of the Office of Science data is currently generated by multiple stand-alone facilities. DREAM can collect data accumulated from these facilities and incorporate it into a fully integrated network accessible from anywhere in the world. The result is a completely new paradigm shift for data management, analysis, and visualization enabling researchers to: Manage their calculations, data, tools, and research results; Ensure that all data are sharable, reproducible and (re)usable—accompanied by appropriate metadata describing its provenance, syntax, and semantics at creation; Advance application performance by selectively adapting APIs and services in response to scientific requirements and architectural complexities; and Provide scalable interactive resource management—navigate data and metadata at multiple levels, provide architecture-aware data integration, analysis and visualization tools. We will engage closely with DOE, NASA, and NOAA science groups working at the leading edge of computing. These engagements—in domains such as biology, climate, and hydrology—will allow us to advance disciplinary science goals and inform our development of technologies that can accelerate discovery across DOE more broadly. We will advertise and promote our technologies via dedicated workshops, tutorials, and sessions at conferences, stand-alone events with broad inter-disciplinary invitation, and engagements with leadership facilities.
The ECP/VTK-m project is providing the core capabilities to perform scientific visualization on Exascale architectures. The ECP/VTK-m project fills the critical feature gap of performing visualization and analysis on processors like graphics-based processors. The results of this project will be delivered in tools like ParaView, Vislt, and Ascent as well as in stand-alone form. Moreover, these projects are depending on this ECP effort to be able to make effective use of ECP architectures. One of the biggest recent changes in high-performance computing is the increasing use of accelerators. Accelerators contain processing cores that independently are inferior to a core in a typical CPU, but these cores are replicated and grouped such that their aggregate execution provides a very high computation rate at a much lower power. Current and future CPU processors also require much more explicit parallelism. Each successive version of the hardware packs more cores into each processor, and technologies like hyper threading and vector operations require even more parallel processing to leverage each core's full potential. VTK-m is a toolkit of scientific visualization algorithms for emerging processor architectures. VTK-m supports the fine-grained concurrency for data analysis and visualization algorithms required to drive extreme scale computing by providing abstract models for data and execution that can be applied to a variety of algorithms across many different processor architectures. The ECP/VTK-m project is building up the VTK-m codebase with the necessary visualization algorithm implementations that run across the varied hardware platforms to be leveraged at the Exascale. We will be working with other ECP projects, such as ALPINE, to integrate the new VTK-m code into production software to enable visualization on our HPC systems.
A newly implemented feature in Giovanni (GES DISC Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Interface) allows users to explore and visualize anomaly data from the NLDAS-2 Primary Forcing and Noah model data sets. For a given measurement and location, an anomaly describes how conditions for a particular time period compare to normal conditions, based on long-term averages. Analyzing anomalies is important for monitoring droughts, determining weather trends, and studying land surface processes relevant for meteorology, hydrology, and climate. Using Giovanni to analyze anomalies for NLDAS-2 data allows for these studies to be efficiently conducted for the central North American region. Phase 2 of NLDAS (NLDAS-2) currently runs at an 1/8th degree resolution, in near-real time, with data sets extending back to January 1979. NLDAS-2 provides data for soil moisture, precipitation, temperature, and other hydrology measurements. Hourly, monthly, and 30-year (1980-2009) monthly climatology data are available for several land surface models and forcing data sets. The Giovanni anomaly tool calculates monthly anomalies, for a given user-defined variable, as the difference between the NLDAS-2 monthly climatology data and the monthly data. The resulting anomaly describes how a chosen month compares to the 30-year monthly average. The presentation will demonstrate the capabilities and usefulness of Giovanni's anomaly tool, detail the recently added NLDAS-2 variables for which anomalies are available, and show how users can access the data.
An analysis and survey with conjecture supporting a preliminary data base design is presented. The data base is intended for use in a Computer Image Generator visual subsystem for a rotorcraft flight simulator that is used for rotorcraft systems development, not training. The approach taken was to attempt to identify the visual perception strategies used during terrain flight, survey environmental and image generation factors, and meld these into a preliminary data base design. This design is directed at Data Base developers, and hopefully will stimulate and aid their efforts to evolve such a Base that will support simulation of terrain flight operations.
Analysis of visual Jupiter flare observations
This document describes the test-bed designed for the investigation of passive direction finding, recognition, and classification of speech and sound sources using sensor arrays. The test-bed forms the experimental basis of the Intelligent Small-Scale Spatial Direction Finder (ISS-SDF) project, aimed at furthering digital signal processing and intelligent sensor capabilities of sensor array technology in applications such as rocket engine diagnostics, sensor health prognostics, and structural anomaly detection. This form of intelligent sensor technology has potential for significant impact on NASA exploration, earth science and propulsion test capabilities. The test-bed consists of microphone arrays, power and signal distribution modules, web-based data acquisition, wireless Ethernet, modeling, simulation and visualization software tools. The Acoustic Sensor Array Modeler I (ASAM I) is used for studying steering capabilities of acoustic arrays and testing DSP techniques. Spatial sound distribution visualization is modeled using the Acoustic Sphere Analysis and Visualization (ASAV-I) tool.
Over the past 12 years, large volumes of precipitation data have been generated from space-based observatories (e.g., TRMM), merging of data products (e.g., gridded 3B42), models (e.g., GMAO), climatologies (e.g., Chang SSM/I derived rain indices), field campaigns, and ground-based measuring stations. The science research, applications, and education communities have greatly benefited from the unrestricted availability of these data from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) and, in particular, the services tailored toward precipitation data access and usability. In addition, tools and services that are responsive to the expressed evolving needs of the precipitation data user communities have been developed at the Precipitation Data and Information Services Center (PDISC) (http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/precipitation or google NASA PDISC), located at the GES DISC, to provide users with quick data exploration and access capabilities. In recent years, data management and access services have become increasingly sophisticated, such that they now afford researchers, particularly those interested in multi-data set science analysis and/or data validation, the ability to homogenize data sets, in order to apply multi-variant, comparison, and evaluation functions. Included in these services is the ability to capture data quality and data provenance. These interoperability services can be directly applied to future data sets, such as those from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. This presentation describes the data sets and services at the PDISC that are currently used by precipitation science and applications researchers, and which will be enhanced in preparation for GPM and associated multi-sensor data research. Specifically, the GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure (Giovanni) will be illustrated. Giovanni enables scientific exploration of Earth science data without researchers having to perform the complicated data access and match-up processes. In addition, PDISC tool and service capabilities being adapted for GPM data will be described, including the Google-like Mirador data search and access engine; semantic technology to help manage large amounts of multi-sensor data and their relationships; data access through various Web services (e.g., OPeNDAP, GDS, WMS, WCS); conversion to various formats (e.g., netCDF, HDF, KML (for Google Earth)); visualization and analysis of Level 2 data profiles and maps; parameter and spatial subsetting; time and temporal aggregation; regridding; data version control and provenance; continuous archive verification; and expertise in data-related standards and interoperability. The goal of providing these services is to further the progress towards a common framework by which data analysis/validation can be more easily accomplished.
The Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure (Giovanni) provides rapid access to, and enables effective utilization of, remotely-sensed data that are applicable to investigations of coastal environmental processes. Data sets in Giovanni include precipitation data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), particularly useful for coastal storm investigations; ocean color radiometry data from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWIFS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), useful for water quality evaluation, phytoplankton blooms, and terrestrial-marine interactions; and atmospheric data from MODIS and the Advanced Infrared Sounder (AIRS), providing the capability to characterize atmospheric variables. Giovanni provides a simple interface allowing discovery and analysis of environmental data sets with accompanying graphic visualizations. Examples of Giovanni investigations of the coastal zone include hurricane and storm impacts, hydrologically-induced phytoplankton blooms, chlorophyll trend analysis, and dust storm characterization. New and near-future capabilities of Giovanni will be described.