Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Visualization Systems”

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.

At least 757 records · Page 42

Computer-implemented system and method for automated and highly accurate plaque analysis, reporting, and visualization

A computer-implemented system and method of intra-oral analysis for measuring plaque removal is disclosed. The system includes hardware for real-time image acquisition and software to store the acquired images on a patient-by-patient basis. The system implements algorithms to segment teeth of interest from surrounding gum, and uses a real-time image-based morphing procedure to automatically overlay a grid onto each segmented tooth. Pattern recognition methods are used to classify plaque from surrounding gum and enamel, while ignoring glare effects due to the reflection of camera light and ambient light from enamel regions. The system integrates these components into a single software suite with an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) that allows users to do an end-to-end run of a patient record, including tooth segmentation of all teeth, grid morphing of each segmented tooth, and plaque classification of each tooth image.

Kemp, James Herbert↗

The display of molecular models with the Ames Interactive Modeling System (AIMS)

A visualization of molecular models can lead to a clearer understanding of the models. Sophisticated graphics devices supported by minicomputers make it possible for the chemist to interact with the display of a very large model, altering its structure. In addition to user interaction, the need arises also for other ways of displaying information. These include the production of viewgraphs, film presentation, as well as publication quality prints of various models. To satisfy these needs, the display capability of the Ames Interactive Modeling System (AIMS) has been enhanced to provide a wide range of graphics and plotting capabilities. Attention is given to an overview of the AIMS system, graphics hardware used by the AIMS display subsystem, a comparison of graphics hardware, the representation of molecular models, graphics software used by the AIMS display subsystem, the display of a model obtained from data stored in molecule data base, a graphics feature for obtaining single frame permanent copy displays, and a feature for producing multiple frame displays.

Egan, J. T.↗

Multiscale Modeling, Simulation and Visualization and Their Potential for Future Aerospace Systems

This document contains the proceedings of the Training Workshop on Multiscale Modeling, Simulation and Visualization and Their Potential for Future Aerospace Systems held at NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, March 5 - 6, 2002. The workshop was jointly sponsored by Old Dominion University's Center for Advanced Engineering Environments and NASA. Workshop attendees were from NASA, other government agencies, industry, and universities. The objectives of the workshop were to give overviews of the diverse activities in hierarchical approach to material modeling from continuum to atomistics; applications of multiscale modeling to advanced and improved material synthesis; defects, dislocations, and material deformation; fracture and friction; thin-film growth; characterization at nano and micro scales; and, verification and validation of numerical simulations, and to identify their potential for future aerospace systems.

Noor, Ahmed K.↗

A Method for Integrating an UBEM with GIS for Spatiotemporal Visualization and Analysis

Leveraging Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for spatiotemporal visualization and analysis of simulated UBEM datasets and real-world data simultaneously can assist in identifying opportunities, as well as potential barriers, to energy efficient and climate adaptation strategies. However, current GIS-based models that support interactive exploration of adaptation strategies and future scenarios are scarce and do not easily incorporate building energy use data for visual analysis over time. This paper describes a workflow to integrate simulated building energy consumption data associated with variable energy efficiency scenarios within a GIS platform for interactive spatiotemporal visualization to support climate adaptation decision-making. The contribution of the work presented is in the ability to selectively view and analyze simulated building energy performance data layered with other real-world geospatial data through an automated feedback loop between an UBEM and ArcGIS. An interactive interface is designed in ArcGIS to enable users to explore building performance scenarios spatially and over time. Using a downtown neighborhood in Syracuse, New York, USA, as a case study, preliminary results demonstrate how the workflow provides insight into existing energy use issues and potential for implementing strategies such as energy load shifting or building retrofits. A discussion includes opportunities as well as challenges to the workflow in facilitating understanding of urban energy model outputs by multiple stakeholders in evaluating potential energy efficient strategies.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗

Virtual Mission Operation Framework (VMOF)

The Virtual Mission Operation Framework (VMOF) is one of the project lifecycle engineering process improvement efforts initiated by the institutional technology infrastructure program at JPL. The VMOF is composed of three frameworks: a model integration framework, a simulation framework, and a visualization framework. The model integration framework interfaces with spacecraft system design, mission design, and structure design. The simulation framework interfaces with the operation scenario design, environmental phenomena science, and science payload system design. The visualization framework interfaces with the flight system testbed, the ground system, and the science analysis. The three frameworks of the VMOF collaborate to create a comprehensive virtual mission operation that enables a "validation-in-the-loop" system design process and lifecycle-continuous science-return validation.This paper discusses the technical approaches for each framework implementation, challenges and approaches involved in streamlining mission information access, and on-going activities toward enabling Model-Based Engineering Design in a collaborative distributed environment.

virtual mission operations↗

Flow visualization using a computerized data acquisition system

A computer-driven traversing mechanism combined with mass data storage, data reduction programs, and general-purpose graphics programs permits a visualization of complex flows. A unique seven-hole probe is used which permits reasonably accurate measurements of all average flow properties if the local flow angle does not exceed 80 degrees. A description is given of the wake of a lifting canard surface as this wake passes over a wing. The flow includes concentrated and dissipating vortices, large regions of reduced total pressure, and local flow angles up to 60 deg. All these features can be clearly seen and accurately located in the graphical output.

Gallington, R.↗

Issues in visual support to real-time space system simulation solved in the Systems Engineering Simulator

The Systems Engineering Simulator has addressed the major issues in providing visual data to its real-time man-in-the-loop simulations. Out-the-window views and CCTV views are provided by three scene systems to give the astronauts their real-world views. To expand the window coverage for the Space Station Freedom workstation a rotating optics system is used to provide the widest field of view possible. To provide video signals to as many viewpoints as possible, windows and CCTVs, with a limited amount of hardware, a video distribution system has been developed to time-share the video channels among viewpoints at the selection of the simulation users. These solutions have provided the visual simulation facility for real-time man-in-the-loop simulations for the NASA space program.

Yuen, Vincent K.↗

Medical technology advances from space research.

NASA-sponsored medical R & D programs for space applications are reviewed with particular attention to the benefits of these programs to earthbound medical services and to the general public. Notable among the results of these NASA programs is an integrated medical laboratory equipped with numerous advanced systems such as digital biotelemetry and automatic visual field mapping systems, sponge electrode caps for electroencephalograms, and sophisticated respiratory analysis equipment.

Pool, S. L.↗

Integrating and Visualizing Tropical Cyclone Data Using the Real Time Mission Monitor

The Real Time Mission Monitor (RTMM) is a visualization and information system that fuses multiple Earth science data sources, to enable real time decision-making for airborne and ground validation experiments. Developed at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, RTMM is a situational awareness, decision-support system that integrates satellite imagery, radar, surface and airborne instrument data sets, model output parameters, lightning location observations, aircraft navigation data, soundings, and other applicable Earth science data sets. The integration and delivery of this information is made possible using data acquisition systems, network communication links, network server resources, and visualizations through the Google Earth virtual globe application. RTMM is extremely valuable for optimizing individual Earth science airborne field experiments. Flight planners, scientists, and managers appreciate the contributions that RTMM makes to their flight projects. A broad spectrum of interdisciplinary scientists used RTMM during field campaigns including the hurricane-focused 2006 NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA), 2007 NOAA-NASA Aerosonde Hurricane Noel flight, 2007 Tropical Composition, Cloud, and Climate Coupling (TC4), plus a soil moisture (SMAP-VEX) and two arctic research experiments (ARCTAS) in 2008. Improving and evolving RTMM is a continuous process. RTMM recently integrated the Waypoint Planning Tool, a Java-based application that enables aircraft mission scientists to easily develop a pre-mission flight plan through an interactive point-and-click interface. Individual flight legs are automatically calculated "on the fly". The resultant flight plan is then immediately posted to the Google Earth-based RTMM for interested scientists to view the planned flight track and subsequently compare it to the actual real time flight progress. We are planning additional capabilities to RTMM including collaborations with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the joint development of a Tropical Cyclone Integrated Data Exchange and Analysis System (TC IDEAS) which will serve as a web portal for access to tropical cyclone data, visualizations and model output.

Goodman, H. Michael↗

An Intelligent Garbage Sorting System Based on Edge Computing and Visual Understanding of Social Internet of Vehicles

In order to enable Social Internet of Vehicles devices to achieve the purpose of intelligent and autonomous garbage classification in a public environment, while avoiding network congestion caused by a large amount of data accessing the cloud at the same time, it is therefore considered to combine mobile edge computing with Social Internet of Vehicles to give full play to mobile edge computing features of high bandwidth and low latency. At the same time, based on cutting-edge technologies such as deep learning, knowledge graph, and 5G transmission, the paper builds an intelligent garbage sorting system based on edge computing and visual understanding of Social Internet of Vehicles. First of all, for the massive multisource heterogeneous Social Internet of Vehicles big data in the public environment, different item modal data adopts different processing methods, aiming to obtain a visual understanding model. Secondly, using the 5G network, the model is deployed on the edge device and the cloud for cloud-side collaborative management, aiming to avoid the waste of edge node resources, while ensuring the data privacy of the edge node. Finally, the Social Internet of Vehicles devices is used to make intelligent decision-making on the big data of the items. First, the items are judged as garbage, and then the category is judged, and finally the task of grabbing and sorting is realized. The experimental results show that the system proposed in this paper can efficiently process the big data of Social Internet of Vehicles and make valuable intelligent decisions. At the same time, it also has a certain role in promoting the promotion of Social Internet of Vehicles devices.

Shen, Xuehao↗

The 2nd Generation Real Time Mission Monitor (RTMM) Development

The NASA Real Time Mission Monitor (RTMM) is a visualization and information system that fuses multiple Earth science data sources, to enable real time decisionmaking for airborne and ground validation experiments. Developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center, RTMM is a situational awareness, decision-support system that integrates satellite imagery and orbit data, radar and other surface observations (e.g., lightning location network data), airborne navigation and instrument data sets, model output parameters, and other applicable Earth science data sets. The integration and delivery of this information is made possible using data acquisition systems, network communication links, network server resources, and visualizations through the Google Earth virtual globe application. In order to improve the usefulness and efficiency of the RTMM system, capabilities are being developed to allow the end-user to easily configure RTMM applications based on their mission-specific requirements and objectives. This second generation RTMM is being redesigned to take advantage of the Google plug-in capabilities to run multiple applications in a web browser rather than the original single application Google Earth approach. Currently RTMM employs a limited Service Oriented Architecture approach to enable discovery of mission specific resources. We are expanding the RTMM architecture such that it will more effectively utilize the Open Geospatial Consortium Sensor Web Enablement services and other new technology software tools and components. These modifications and extensions will result in a robust, versatile RTMM system that will greatly increase flexibility of the user to choose which science data sets and support applications to view and/or use. The improvements brought about by RTMM 2nd generation system will provide mission planners and airborne scientists with enhanced decision-making tools and capabilities to more efficiently plan, prepare and execute missions, as well as to playback and review past mission data. To paraphrase the old television commercial RTMM doesn t make the airborne science, it makes the airborne science easier.

Blakeslee, Richard↗

Multiple-Flat-Panel System Displays Multidimensional Data

The NASA Ames hyperwall is a display system designed to facilitate the visualization of sets of multivariate and multidimensional data like those generated in complex engineering and scientific computations. The hyperwall includes a 77 matrix of computer-driven flat-panel video display units, each presenting an image of 1,280 1,024 pixels. The term hyperwall reflects the fact that this system is a more capable successor to prior computer-driven multiple-flat-panel display systems known by names that include the generic term powerwall and the trade names PowerWall and Powerwall. Each of the 49 flat-panel displays is driven by a rack-mounted, dual-central-processing- unit, workstation-class personal computer equipped with a hig-hperformance graphical-display circuit card and with a hard-disk drive having a storage capacity of 100 GB. Each such computer is a slave node in a master/ slave computing/data-communication system (see Figure 1). The computer that acts as the master node is similar to the slave-node computers, except that it runs the master portion of the system software and is equipped with a keyboard and mouse for control by a human operator. The system utilizes commercially available master/slave software along with custom software that enables the human controller to interact simultaneously with any number of selected slave nodes. In a powerwall, a single rendering task is spread across multiple processors and then the multiple outputs are tiled into one seamless super-display. It must be noted that the hyperwall concept subsumes the powerwall concept in that a single scene could be rendered as a mosaic image on the hyperwall. However, the hyperwall offers a wider set of capabilities to serve a different purpose: The hyperwall concept is one of (1) simultaneously displaying multiple different but related images, and (2) providing means for composing and controlling such sets of images. In place of elaborate software or hardware crossbar switches, the hyperwall concept substitutes reliance on the human visual system for integration, synthesis, and discrimination of patterns in complex and high-dimensional data spaces represented by the multiple displayed images. The variety of multidimensional data sets that can be displayed on the hyperwall is practically unlimited. For example, Figure 2 shows a hyperwall display of surface pressures and streamlines from a computational simulation of airflow about an aerospacecraft at various Mach numbers and angles of attack. In this display, Mach numbers increase from left to right and angles of attack increase from bottom to top. That is, all images in the same column represent simulations at the same Mach number, while all images in the same row represent simulations at the same angle of attack. The same viewing transformations and the same mapping from surface pressure to colors were used in generating all the images.

Gundo, Daniel↗

Visualizing Fault Induced Traveling Waves In Medium Voltage Systems

Traveling waves are induced in power systems during most transient events in the grid. These waves travel close to the speed of light in overhead lines and 50% to 60% the speed of light in underground cables. Even though traveling wave-based protection schemes for transmission systems are available commercially, traveling waves in medium voltage distribution networks are still in research space. Compared to transmission system, medium voltage distribution systems contain more reflections and refractions. Thus, visualization is challenging and is critical in locating faults in distribution network. To address this visualization challenge, this paper presents an open-source tool to visualize the traveling waves using Bewley lattice approach. The developed visualization tool will be useful for the protection engineers to detect and triangulate fault locations in the medium voltage systems and isolate the faults.

Bewley Lattice↗

Bridging cognitive gaps between user and model in interactive dimension reduction

Interactive machine learning (ML) systems are difficult to design because of the "Two Black Boxes" problem that exists at the interface between human and machine. Many algorithms that are used in interactive ML systems are black boxes that are presented to users, while the human cognition represents a second black box that can be difficult for the algorithm to interpret. These two black boxes create cognitive gaps between the user and the interactive ML model when a user interacts with the system. In this paper, we identify several cognitive gaps that exist in a previously-developed interactive visual analytics (VA) system, Andromeda. These cognitive gaps that we are addressing in Andromeda are representative of common problems in other VA systems. Our goal with this work is to open both black boxes and bridge these cognitive gaps by making improvements to the original Andromeda system, including designing new visual features to help people better understand how Andromeda processes and interacts with data and improving the underlying algorithm so that the Andromeda system can better understand the intent of the user during the data exploration process. We evaluate our designs through both qualitative and quantitative analysis (i.e., user study and simulation analysis), and the results confirm that the improved Andromeda system outperforms the original version significantly in a series of high-dimensional data understanding tasks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Optimizing Air Traffic - Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Flight Path Planning and 3D Airspace Visualization for Air Traffic Control

Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems are vital components of the National Airspace System (NAS). ATC, Airport Traffic Control Towers (ATCT), and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) are responsible for directing all flights departing from and arriving at airports, managing our nation’s airspace, preventing potential accidents, and ensuring that every flight is accounted for. However, these systems often face challenges in effectively monitoring the skies. Issues such as poor communication between operators, difficulty in performing operations, and the constant need for vigilance frequently burden ATC operators. Additionally, the projected increase in air traffic in the coming years will only exacerbate the stress associated with this role. To address these issues, we propose a system that assists ATC operators in situations such as handovers, emergencies, and routing aircraft to avoid weather hazards. Our solution includes an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)-based Flight Pathways Planning System (FPPS) designed to find the fastest and most optimal routes for aircraft, taking into account weather conditions, restricted terrain, and Extended-Range Twin-Engine Operational Performance Standards (ETOPS) ratings. The proposed Predictive Weather Planning Model, included in FPPS, adjusts routes based on real-time and forecasted weather conditions. Additionally, our NVIDIA Omniverse 3D Visualization System offers a highly interactive environment for better visualization and a clear view of the airspace. By incorporating these systems, the roles of ATC, ATCT, and TRACON operators will become more manageable and less stressful, equipping them to efficiently handle the growing density of airspace.

Regina Ayoubi↗

Multivariable manual control with simultaneous visual and auditory presentation of information

Multivariable manual compensatory tracking experiments were carried out in order to determine typical strategies of the human operator and conditions for improvement of his performance if one of the visual displays of the tracking errors is supplemented by an auditory feedback. Because the tracking error of the system which is only visually displayed is found to decrease, but not in general that of the auditorally supported system, it was concluded that the auditory feedback unloads the visual system of the operator who can then concentrate on the remaining exclusively visual displays.

Uhlemann, H.↗